Saturday 17 August 2013

Maxillae

Remember the ornithopod jaws that Mary and Sharyn found at Eric the Red West this year?  Dave has let slip that these are actually maxillae (that is, upper teeth rows not lower).  As Dr Tom Rich keeps telling us, because they are a weaker bone, maxillae are a lot rarer than mandibles (lower jaws) - in fact, it is not unusual to find 20 mandibles preserved for every maxilla.  So once again, our Eric the Red West site has yielded the unexpected.

1 comment:

  1. Another update - Mary's is indeed a maxilla but Dave has confirmed that Sharyn's tiny one is a mandible (it was just fooling him for a little while).

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