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Sunday, March 1, 2020

Hemipristis serra teeth from the Belgrade Quarry?

The teeth of the extinct Snaggletooth shark (Hemipristis serra) are fairly easy to ID from the tooth shape alone.  Triangular in shape, usually angled to one side, and with large serrations along the edges, particularly along the edge that was facing towards the back of the jaw.  Below are three teeth, two laterals and a frontal, that came in a bag of mixed teeth marked "Belgrade Quarry, NC".

Specimen #1 - right side lateral tooth

Specimen #2 - left side lateral tooth

Specimen #3 - frontal tooth

As I mentioned earlier , these teeth came in a bag labelled as "Belgrade Quarry, NC". That quarry exposes sediments from the Eocene to the Miocene.  Hemipristis serra is known from that quarry but the color of these teeth seem to indicate a different source. Perhaps the Lee Creek quarry, also in North Carolina, where this species is known to be found in the Yorktown formation (late Miocene-Early Pliocene)?


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