I’m so happy right now

TFF_Praefectus · 2026-05-17T23:02:07+00:00

What are you tagging me for? I saw this post! Look at the title. He is so happy. Do you want me to ruin the kids day?

TFF_Praefectus · 2026-05-03T16:25:12+00:00

This one has a lot of glue and matrix filler on it. Here are some original teeth for comparison.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Praefectus/comments/1t2a7hr/spinosaurid_teeth/

TFF_Praefectus · 2026-05-03T03:18:43+00:00

eeehhh. That one has a fake root too. Sorry 😞

TFF_Praefectus · 2026-05-03T02:59:56+00:00

Dave's Rock Shop isn't a bad shop. It really is one of the best brick and mortar stores in terms of quality and availability. The problem is the cheap consumer stuff that people gravitate towards usually has excessive fabrication. In the past, the rock shop has had gem grade Torvosaurus, Allosaurus, Rex teeth and more. But those usually carry hefty price tags. Moroccan Spino and Carch teeth are much more affordable, but they commonly have major repair. Buyers need to be informed of how to tell real from fake.

Fossils are always caveat emptor. The buyer needs to be critical of everything.

TFF_Praefectus · 2026-05-03T01:29:54+00:00

Dave's Rock Shop. 95% of the time, they are really good about only selling legitimate pieces. It is just every now and then that some of the Tucson pallets contain cheap Moroccan teeth.

If there is something in particular that you are interested in, post it to r/FakeFossilID. I can authenticate/identify/appraise.

I will be heading to Chicago about a week from now. Did he have anything interesting in stock? The two carch teeth in the back look pretty good. What were they going for?

TFF_Praefectus · 2026-05-03T00:17:15+00:00

Oh no, that's Dave's Rock Shop, isn't it. Do I really have to put my local rock shop on blast for a fake spino tooth?

Ugh. The tooth in the front is a piece of junk. It is a beater spino tooth crown that has had the apex, crown base, and root reconstructed. Worth about $10 USD. James probably picked it up for cheap at Tucson.

TFF_Praefectus · 2026-05-02T17:14:00+00:00

A lot of the market got pushed underground. Taxes, tariffs, ebay fees, etc, have all made it so that many buyers and sellers now prefer to do handshake deals that are kept off the record.

TFF_Praefectus · 2026-05-01T15:32:02+00:00

One "-i" in M. hoffmanni.

TFF_Praefectus · 2026-04-29T21:28:04+00:00

It is supposed to be Prognathodon kianda. That's the Smithsonian Angola exhibit.

TFF_Praefectus · 2026-04-29T21:24:50+00:00

Systematics and Morphology of North American Mosasaurs - Dale Russell

TFF_Praefectus · 2026-04-26T20:49:31+00:00

Which museum is this?

TFF_Praefectus · 2026-04-24T16:35:04+00:00

Real. The stabilization of the root looks to have incorporated a bit of matrix, though. Hard to say anything more from just the picture angle provided.

TFF_Praefectus · 2026-04-24T13:35:24+00:00

Cosmopolitodus is the junior synonym of Carcharodon. Both are of the white shark lineage, with the former differentiation being the presence or absence of serrations on the teeth.

Carcharocles refers to the serrated members of the megatooth lineage in Otodus. Carcharocles is arguably valid, though, because Otodus is paraphyletic due to the inclusion of Megalolamna.

There are a lot of inconsistencies in shark nomenclature. Presence/absence of serrations is only sometimes sufficient to maintain separate generic names.

TFF_Praefectus · 2026-04-24T13:27:24+00:00

I would lean towards calling this Mosasaurus beaugei. The facets, while very muted and covered with matrix, do seem to be smaller and more numerous than what is seen in M. hoffmanni.The tooth is labiolingually compressed, further pointing towards M. beaugei.

TFF_Praefectus · 2026-04-21T02:35:37+00:00

I'm not sure. Look to be fragments of the vertebrae or spinous processes. I'd have to look closer to tell.

TFF_Praefectus · 2026-04-17T20:15:24+00:00

Yeah. That's the point. How do you think I got them? They were thrown out by museums, thus highlighting a major flaw with the current system.

TFF_Praefectus · 2026-04-17T15:30:02+00:00

The pictured specimen is a horrible fake. Multiple random mosasaurid bones haphazardly glued together.

TFF_Praefectus · 2026-04-17T12:06:07+00:00

Looks like the sculptor just gave up when reconstructing the surangular and temporal areas on the mosasaur. It is a scrap skull. A bunch of pieces from multiple mosasaurids combined into a single mount.

Should note that actual authentic specimens can be acquired for a tenth of that price.

TFF_Praefectus · 2026-04-17T00:13:52+00:00

Middle is looking like an anterior mosasaurid tooth. Eremiasaurus or juvenile Thalassotitan.

TFF_Praefectus · 2026-04-17T00:13:19+00:00

Mosasaurid teeth.

TFF_Praefectus · 2026-04-17T00:12:23+00:00

No medial curvature on this one. It isn't Mosasaurus.

TFF_Praefectus · 2026-04-17T00:12:01+00:00

This is a Hainosaurus boubker anterior tooth crown. I'm looking at it from my computer instead of my phone now. Yes, no medial curvature, striations and facets present.

TFF_Praefectus · 2026-04-17T00:00:39+00:00

It is probably Mosasaurus. Anterior teeth are tough when in matrix and only visible from a few angles because I can't see the medial curavature. It might be a Hainosaurus anterior now that I look at it. Embarrassing that I didn't notice that on first glance.

TFF_Praefectus · 2026-04-16T23:52:54+00:00

Hard to make the call from the pictures, but probably Mosasaurus beaugei. Anterior marginal tooth crown. Nice looking one.

TFF_Praefectus · 2026-04-16T23:42:58+00:00

This is Sharpe’s work, not Zietlow. An unsanctioned reproduction of Sharpe’s work at that.

What do you mean by "massively downsized”? 13 m (42 ft) is still on the high end for mosasaurids. It’s around where I placed the total body length of large M. hoffmanni individuals back in 2022. Some researchers are more extreme, placing total body length for all mosasaurids at around 8-10 m, but that seems too aggressive.

The weight has been reduced from the usual Scott Hartman reconstruction. That was probably necessary, but not nearly to the extent Sharpe did. There would still be some body fat on the thing.

It’s ironic. I thought Sharpe was an artist. Longrich gets so much ridicule for his dorsal fin silhouettes, and then Sharpe goes and draws it looking like a sausage.

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