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Fossil-Treasures-of-Florida-Newsletter, Issue #0018 -- Fossil Bison Tooth VS Fossil Camel Tooth July 29, 2013 |
Fossil Newsletter, Issue #0018 - How to Identify a Fossil Bison Tooth from a Fossil Camel ToothIn this Issue:* How to Identify a Bison Tooth Fossil from a Camel Tooth Fossil
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Did a friend forward this Newsletter/ezine to you? What topics would you like to see in the next Fossil Newsletters? E-mail a reply to this Newsletter / Ezine and tell us what you think. How to Identify a Bison Tooth Fossil from a Camel Tooth FossilYou may be asking: “Is this really a problem?” “Why yes it is.” If you are hunting fossil teeth in Florida this problem will come-up.
Bison and Camel roamed Florida together 20,000 years ago. They are long since gone from the wild’s of the Sunshine State, but many of their fossil teeth remain. These two plant eaters have very similar teeth at first glance, and it is easy to misidentify the two. Bison have teeth of a grazer that mostly eats grass. Grass contains more silica and wears their teeth down quicker than browsing herbivores. Camels have teeth of a browser and eat leaves, bark, twigs, etc. which have less silica and their teeth wear more slowly than grazers. Camels were more abundant in Florida than Bison, and you will almost always find more fossil camel / llama teeth in Florida than Bison, however, the reverse is true for the rest of the country.
If you look at the above picture, you can see by the point of this ink pen that between the two ridges of this fossil tooth lays a pillar of enamel. This pillar of enamel is the stylid.
The appearance of the stylid on the left fossil tooth is from a Bison and is not a camel tooth. Of course, the absence of this stylid would help confirm for a Camel Tooth. In general, the Bison or Cow Teeth tend to be a larger tooth than a Camel Tooth, although there has been some giant camelids in Florida. Both Bison and Cows teeth have stylids, but the stylids on Cow’s teeth are fragile and often erodes away and, of course, are not fossils. Camel/Llama teeth have kind of a "set of steps" type of look to them and No stylid. What's New at Fossil-Treasures-of-Florida.com*Fossils for Sale 1*Fossils for Sale 2 *Fossils for Sale 3 *Fossils for Sale 4 *Facebook Like Link Do you have ideas? Comments? Feedback? E-mail a reply to this Newsletter / Ezine and tell us what you think. Contact Us Thank you for subscribing to the Fossil-Treasures-of-Florida-Newsletter!
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