Re: paleonet Mystery fossils, Part 2

["K.A. Monsch" <kmonsch@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

on 7/3/2003 22:25, Mike Everhart at mike@oceansofkansas.com wrote:

> All,
> 
> I've just added a "front" and "back" view of a new, more complete specimen
> to the page.  At the suggestion of one of yesterday's respondents, I have
> re-oriented it so that what was the crown of a "tooth or scale" is now the
> base of a ????? .... the object measures just under 1 mm across...
> 
> Please take another look: http://www.oceansofkansas.com/temp.html
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Mike Everhart
> Adjunct Curator of Paleontology
> Sternberg Museum of Natural History
> Fort Hays State University, Hays, KS
> http://www.oceansofkansas.com
> 
> 
> 
Dear Mike,

Unfortunately, the pictures of a more complete specimen just adds to my
confusion. Previously, all the pictures on the webpage indeed reminded me of
teeth and the clearest pictures of them all might have been rajiform teeth,
but this long and slender spine does on the new web image doesn't remind me
of any fish tooth that I'm familiar with. If it is a (dorsal) fin
pterygiophore, then how should I see it? A pterygiophore without the fin
spine that it would've supported? And is the long spine then the base of the
pterygiophore that possibly makes contact with a (neural) spine? Moreover,
if it is really a pterygiophore, I wouldn't be able to say what of. But
besides that, if you still want to look up more on rajiform teeth: besides
what I already mentioned there must be loads of information on the subject
out there, but other recent well-avaialable papers are Purdy et al (2001), a
paper which is mentioned on your web page and Gayet et al (2001, Palaeo3 169
nos. 1-2: 39-68). Hope this helps. Sorry I'm not able to say  more than
this.

Greetings,
Ken