I found something. A big tooth?

T

trailmaker

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May 15, 2011
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This was found in the Santa Cruz Mtns. in Northern California. It looks like it was pushed to the surface by a gopher. There are mountain lion in the area and for thousands of years it was prime bear habitat. Any guesses?
 
i don't think its antler, shapes all wrong.

looks like a tooth, fossilized, or just real old. maybe bear, or lion. looks like enamel on the outside, and the ridge on one side looks like a canine tooth,(position, not canine as in canid, dog/wolf)

my guess is lower jaw, right side. hooks in and and back.

interested in the findings tho, shouldn't be hard to find out in cali, never been but the museum at the tar pits should have someone who would know.
(just noticed you found it up north, tar pits are down south, yes?)
 
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Thanks for the responses. The folks at the fossil forum tell me this is a shark tooth fossil, from about 10 million years ago.
 
Well to me it does not look like antler. Triangular shape reminds me of a large cat. Enamel on the outside with a softer core on the inside. It is fun to guess. Make a necklace out of it.
 
don't know what it is but it is pretty cool nonetheless. thanks for sharing
 
I never considered the legality of it since it was laying on the surface of my own property but hey this is California so I probably broke a dozen laws by collecting it. I could take to the local University but the guys at "The Fossil Forum" who seem pretty knowledgeable have no doubt that it's a shark tooth. I've found fossilized sea shells in the area so it seems pretty likely that it is a shark tooth.
 
WOW thats pretty cool! I see what you mean it has a sharp side and a good hook to it. I was thinking tooth but not that old ,I have found teeth and they all seem to get that cracked long ways look . I wouldn`t tell anyone else and dig up the whole place.
 
trailmaker said:
I never considered the legality of it since it was laying on the surface of my own property but hey this is California so I probably broke a dozen laws by collecting it. I could take to the local University but the guys at "The Fossil Forum" who seem pretty knowledgeable have no doubt that it's a shark tooth. I've found fossilized sea shells in the area so it seems pretty likely that it is a shark tooth.
Click to expand...

don't know about California, but in Ohio, if its your land its fair game, from artifacts to fossils. most states do have rules about artifacts but i don't think any have them about fossils.(could be wrong)

if it is in fact a shark tooth, it would seem that there should be a few more down there where that one came from. if its not a shark, who knows could be anything in the ground there. could be a 8inch saber tooth tooth.

worse case scenario you dig up a gopher hole.
 
That is truly awesome...totally agree on carefully digging that area to see if there's anything else cool down there..but I'd be careful.. really think about it before you put a shovel in the ground..an idea.. if you can make like at least a 3ft diameter specific area on the ground exacly over where you found the tooth with some rope, dig using a decent quality garden spoon, moving toward the center from the out side, in a circular manner, until the first few inches are removed within the circle of your rope (where you found the tooth at its' center point) uniformly, before you continue deeper..; that way you don't risk putting a shovel head through something even cooler..if it's there;)...please keep us posted. you are blessed, indeed.

Have a tarp nearby, that you will throw all the dirt in you dig up..later on, if you feel like it, you can use a water hose to help act like a sieve to make sure you didn't miss anything; when your done, you can just slide the tarp to the edge of the hole/dump it in etc..
 
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Seein' as the ridge is perpendicular to the curve, & not on the inside, means it sat in a row of teeth with the curvature to pull/hold whatever it's eating inward. I'm no expert, but my money would bet on sharks tooth. Fossilized, but in pretty good shape even if it is broke.
 
I am with Hank on this one - Sharks teeth are flat in profile to nest in layers - also, a sharks tooth will have serrations along the edge - they are cutting tools and look the part even in fossil form.

I can't see it being a tip of an antler.

It looks like a canine or bear tooth to me.

Now the OP has to take it to an authority (IRL please...) to have it looked over. ;^)

Excellent find - I would be thrilled to find a mystery piece like that - thanks for posting your pictures and story.

best

mqqn
 
Cool find. Look on the side under a scope for micro serrations and evidence of chipping. Go back too, who knows what else is there.
 
Yep. Definitely NOT a shark's tooth. I've seen shark teeth from waaaaay back in the day, and modern ones. Without exception, they have a flat cross-section and a no real curvature. This tooth exhibits both conical cross-section and a noticeable curve to hook or pull the meat in.

I have seen whitetail and mule deer antler tips with this same morphology, but it's not common. Also, the external surface has too glassy an appearance to be weathered antler. My vote goes for canine tip.
 
This is definitely a shark tooth. I grew up in Florida and finding/collecting fossilized shark teeth was a very large part of my childhood. I have thousands of shark teeth, some small, some large. I have several that look very similar to what you have there. The shape of the tooth will depend on the species of shark. Some teeth are triangular in shape with very pronounced edges and serrations, others can be conically shaped and very smooth with no edges at all. Yours is missing the top, which would assist in giving it the more recognizable T shape. The flatter side is the front (facing out) while the side with the pronounced curve is actually the back (facing in). The angle that the tooth would sit in the mouth would point the tip up or down and slightly toward the rear so that the prey's act of pulling away would only improve the grip of the sharks teeth. The specific shape of the tooth also changes based on the position of the tooth within the shark's mouth. Shark teeth shed naturally and are replaced on a regular basis. When you find a whole tooth (T shaped), it is likely that it was either shed while the shark was still alive, or was loosened from the jaw after death. Broken teeth (as yours is) were generally either broken by natural processes after the tooth was shed, or was broken off during a feeding.

Your tooth appears to me to be the business end of a mako (Isurus desori, now extinct) shark tooth from a shark about 8' to 10' in length. Great find! Keep looking, where there's one there are usually many more. Search in streams that contain large deposits of pebbles. I used to use an old pasta strainer to scoop a big load of sand and pebbles, then sift it in the water to wash out all the small particles. Then systematically search through the pebbles just looking for something out of the ordinary. I have found teeth about half the size of a grain of rice all the way up to about 5 inches in length.

Here is a link to a pretty good page with sample pics. The third pic down has some nice mako examples, in particular: top row, second from right.

Just to show how different shark teeth can be from each other, compare these sand shark teeth (long, slender, conical, subtle ridges, no serrations) to this great white tooth (triangular, flat, serrated). They can be very different, but no matter their shape, I wouldn't want to have anything to do with their use!!


Happy hunting!
 
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Yep another vote......definitely shark tooth. Have gathered many that look like that
 
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