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Hi Everyone! I found this fossil in Rattlesnake Creek here in Gainesville, FL after Hurricane Matthew. The way it’s broken makes it a tricky one to identify. Let me know what you think it is! I’ve uploaded photos from a few different angles to help you out. It’s about 2 cm vertical length.
@jnance @lcone @cferrara @acurrier @bostickkw @jon-cartier @matthew-croxton @joyce-drakeford @evan-taylor @gsantos @mhendrickson @jkallmeyer @lmccall @maggie-paxson @michael-reagin @llundgren@vperez, weird! It looks like a completely different fossil from the ventral side (the 3rd image, no.3756, is the ventral side, right?). I’m thinking it’s broken and tumbled, so not the whole fossil. Doesn’t look like a shark tooth, too wide and too many bumps that aren’t sharp…I don’t think it’s a tooth from something else either. Hmmm. I am stumped.
@vperez Whoa. That’s a worn fossil.
@llundgren. I agree. I don’t think its a tooth either.At first glance, because of the curvature of the fossil and what might be an articular surface, my reaction was I was looking at a phalanx or the distal end of a radius. Though, I’m not sure now after looking through some other photos I have. I don’t know how much of the shape is from weathering. But IMG 3756. If that is an articular surface, it looks weird, but might be the key to figuring it out.
@vperez, it appears to be a broken lower third molar of Metaxytherium, an extinct genus of dugong. Image 3756 is the crown view whereas image 3737 looks like the anterior or mesial view with a nice facet showing where it wore against the lower second molar.
Cool find! Makes me jealous, because I used to live along Rattlesnake Creek in Gainesville. All I ever found were shark teeth, which are interesting in their own right, but not as interesting as a dugong (note my bias as a mammalian paleontologist).
The third photo makes me think that it may be a really beat up fish ballast bone (tilly bone)…
I would also agree that it is probably not a tooth, since I see no enamel…
Hope this helps!
-Bill
Thank you everyone for playing our National Fossil Day game! The fossil is in fact a hyperostosis from a fish (sometimes called a tilly bone as @william-howat aptly suggested). @jnance suggested it’s from a spadefish (Ephippidae).
@aaron-wood you fell into the trap. When I first found this I thought I had found a dugong tooth and was very excited, but under greater inspection realized it was a tilly bone. It has a texture very characteristic of fish bone. However, don’t feel bad because I showed this to a lot of people here are UF and about half thought it was either Metataxytherium or a peccary tooth at first.
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