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LARGE PLESIOSAUR TOOTH - Ganntour Basin Phosphate Deposits - Khouribga, Morocco CRETACEOUS PERIOD: 65 million years ago Compared to most of the poor grade fossil plesiosaur teeth specimens that are on the market, this is quite a large and fine example. It is over two inches long and is complete with most of the root all the way to the sharp tip. Practically unavoidable due the nature of the way they are discovered, it has been fractured and professionally repaired but there is no fabrication to the tooth. Splendid coloration and fine wrinkled enamel detail is intact and well displayed. This is a very rare quality and uncommonly large tooth! Plesiosaur teeth are fragile unlike powerful meat-eating dinosaur teeth. They are dug from phosphate-bearing soil and in the process of their extraction, they are almost invariably broken and badly damaged. Finding a complete and high quality specimen is very uncommon. Overworked sources now make fine grade examples rare specimens and only available in very limited quantities on the public market. Poor quality teeth selling for considerably less are far more common and like all commercial grade fossils, have no hope of appreciating nor holding any value in the collector market. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. Plesiosaurs were aquatic reptiles, and were an important part of the marine ecology from the end of the Triassic period 220 million years ago until the end of the Cretaceous 65 million years ago. Their remains have been found on every continent. The plesiosaur are a large and varied group which have been broadly defined as two distinct types, the long-necked, small-headed plesiosaurs and the short-necked, large-headed pliosaurs.
We can learn about what they ate from the fossils. Occasionally stomach contents are found with well-preserved specimens, showing that some at least fed on belemnites and ammonites. Other specimens show bite marks from larger predatory forms. There is a wide range in tooth shape, showing that they were adapted to feeding on different types of prey. Long, slender teeth may have been used to rake through sea-floor sediments in the way a swan dabbles on pond bottoms. Larger, more robust teeth seem to be adapted for feeding on armored fish and cephalopods. Some of the bigger pliosaurs had enormous, dagger-like teeth which were used to attack their smaller relatives. A Plesiosaur used stones in it's stomach known as gastroliths. These made it possible for them to swallow their food whole, letting the gastrolith grind the food. The stones may also have served as ballast or weight for deep diving. LARGE SPECIMEN WITH FINE DETAIL, COLOR AND SHARP TIP 2.15" in length along the curve SOLD MV11-003 INCLUDES DISPLAY BOX Actual Item - One Only |
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THIS IMAGE IS PROTECTED BY A STRICTLY ENFORCED COPYRIGHT AND MAY NOT BE USED IN ANYWAY |
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A typical plesiosaur had a long neck, a broad body, four large flippers
and a relatively short tail. An apt description (of some forms at
least) is of "a snake strung through a turtle".
Plesiosaurs were one of the first kinds of extinct animal known to
science, and were described as early as 1821. The smallest were
about 2m long as adults, the largest were enormous pliosaurs up to 20m
long, comparable in size or even bigger than sperm whales ( Physeter ).
They were possibly the biggest predators of all time, though remains of
these giants are rare and fragmentary, and much research remains to be
done.