Found this animal tooth in a creek in Germany. Any ideas what it could be from?
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I need to do chores today, so I instead used my procrastination energy here! It's the molar of a herbivore. Here's what I have:
Definitely not beaver. Beaver incisors are orange and shaped very differently and it's far too large to be a beaver premolar or molar. Wrong morphology anyhow - beaver pre/molars are plicated and this is not. It's also not from a muskrat based on all the same criteria but the plication.
It's definitely from a bovid, not from a caprid or equid. Equids tend to have these bizarre columnar molars, and caprid molars are too small and the wrong shape. Since you're in Germany, that leaves us with cows and European bison.
It's the first or second molar from one of those based on the two cusps; if it had three cusps, it'd be the third molar. What clinches it is the asymmetrical gap in the roots (called a furcation area). Cows have a gap right in the middle of their first and second molars, whereas bison have an off-center gap in their first molar.
Congratulations, you have a bison M1!
Cow X-ray
Bison X-rayThat little part of me thinks you were procrastinating so hard you researched, studied and learnt all that just to put off doing the dishes
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Isn't that some kind of incisor? Do they have those?
Yes they do
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We were thinking beaver but don't they have orange teeth? Anyway looking forward to hearing your expertise.
Looks to me like it's from a creek in Germany.
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Looks to me like it's from a creek in Germany.
I love it when experts from around the world provide their knowledge for curious people!
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Are these serrations typical? They look quite mean.
Yes, very typical.
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I need to do chores today, so I instead used my procrastination energy here! It's the molar of a herbivore. Here's what I have:
Definitely not beaver. Beaver incisors are orange and shaped very differently and it's far too large to be a beaver premolar or molar. Wrong morphology anyhow - beaver pre/molars are plicated and this is not. It's also not from a muskrat based on all the same criteria but the plication.
It's definitely from a bovid, not from a caprid or equid. Equids tend to have these bizarre columnar molars, and caprid molars are too small and the wrong shape. Since you're in Germany, that leaves us with cows and European bison.
It's the first or second molar from one of those based on the two cusps; if it had three cusps, it'd be the third molar. What clinches it is the asymmetrical gap in the roots (called a furcation area). Cows have a gap right in the middle of their first and second molars, whereas bison have an off-center gap in their first molar.
Congratulations, you have a bison M1!
Cow X-ray
Bison X-rayWhat's a bison molar doing in a creek in Germany?
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I need to do chores today, so I instead used my procrastination energy here! It's the molar of a herbivore. Here's what I have:
Definitely not beaver. Beaver incisors are orange and shaped very differently and it's far too large to be a beaver premolar or molar. Wrong morphology anyhow - beaver pre/molars are plicated and this is not. It's also not from a muskrat based on all the same criteria but the plication.
It's definitely from a bovid, not from a caprid or equid. Equids tend to have these bizarre columnar molars, and caprid molars are too small and the wrong shape. Since you're in Germany, that leaves us with cows and European bison.
It's the first or second molar from one of those based on the two cusps; if it had three cusps, it'd be the third molar. What clinches it is the asymmetrical gap in the roots (called a furcation area). Cows have a gap right in the middle of their first and second molars, whereas bison have an off-center gap in their first molar.
Congratulations, you have a bison M1!
Cow X-ray
Bison X-rayThis is golden age Reddit level content right here
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A bison in Germany?
possibly a bovine, maybe buffalo but not a bison unless its in the US
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What's a bison molar doing in a creek in Germany?
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Risky click of the day!
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We were thinking beaver but don't they have orange teeth? Anyway looking forward to hearing your expertise.
where's the "yo momma" answers? I'm disappointed
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Looks to me like it's from a creek in Germany.
I'd even go so far to speculate it's from an animal.
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English is perfectly reasonable... if you think taking root words from 3 or 4 languages as a core and fleshing it out with words from another half dozen languages and stitching it together with grammar that kind of matches a couple of those languages is reasonable.
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I'd even go so far to speculate it's from an animal.
It might not be an animal, it might be an African Strangler
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This is golden age Reddit level content right here
I miss these
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I need to do chores today, so I instead used my procrastination energy here! It's the molar of a herbivore. Here's what I have:
Definitely not beaver. Beaver incisors are orange and shaped very differently and it's far too large to be a beaver premolar or molar. Wrong morphology anyhow - beaver pre/molars are plicated and this is not. It's also not from a muskrat based on all the same criteria but the plication.
It's definitely from a bovid, not from a caprid or equid. Equids tend to have these bizarre columnar molars, and caprid molars are too small and the wrong shape. Since you're in Germany, that leaves us with cows and European bison.
It's the first or second molar from one of those based on the two cusps; if it had three cusps, it'd be the third molar. What clinches it is the asymmetrical gap in the roots (called a furcation area). Cows have a gap right in the middle of their first and second molars, whereas bison have an off-center gap in their first molar.
Congratulations, you have a bison M1!
Cow X-ray
Bison X-rayWow astonishing research, thank you!
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We were thinking beaver but don't they have orange teeth? Anyway looking forward to hearing your expertise.
I found a very similar one, also in Germany, many years ago. I figured mine was a cow tooth, although I'm not sure how old it was. Most people no longer kept cows in that town at the time that I lived there.
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That little part of me thinks you were procrastinating so hard you researched, studied and learnt all that just to put off doing the dishes
Close! I went to college for microbiology, but we got a year-long crash course on general biology, including macroorganisms, plus we had a lot of ag students that I dragged kicking and screaming through their courses as a tutor. I probably spent twenty minutes or so on it because I have a really hazy recall of dentition details.
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Wow astonishing research, thank you!
wrote on last edited by [email protected]Thanks! It was 10 times better than normal because I really didn't want to fight spiders while cleaning out the shed.
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We were thinking beaver but don't they have orange teeth? Anyway looking forward to hearing your expertise.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]beavers teeth has iron hence the orange teeth. most mammals teeth are based on apatite. some animals have other metals like zinc or iron.
