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Due to decreasing use over the years, I have decided to disable the forum functionality of the site.

Forums will still be available to view but new posts are no longer allowed.

Anyone know an ancient mammal researcher?

Prepare for paleontological randomness. So another item on my list of strange hobbies is making horse fossil replicas in my spare time. Buying certain replicas are expensive so making the smaller ones myself is a cheaper option. I've already finished a protungulatum skull (possibly one of the first hooved mammals) and next on the evolutionary list is the skull of a phenacodus, an ancient animal that may have been the ancestor of hyracotherium (AKA eohippus AKA the dawn horse). My problem is that the only sources I've found state that phenacodus had 44 teeth, yet all the clear photos or illustrations I've found only show 42. >.< This is before wolf teeth developed so they can't be hiding by being really small. I need to know where the other two teeth went, or find an example that shows all of them. Ironically the name phenacodus is greek for "obvious teeth" :-| Anyone know a researcher of early mammals? [img]http://i872.photobucket.com/albums/ab283/talkingmongo0se/craneo-y-repre…]

Threnody Mon, 01/24/2011 - 15:45

Thanks critterskeeper. ^_^

I guess I should post some photos :smile:
Protungulatum image and the skull I made from apoxy sculpt. Not prepped or painted and fairly basic just to use as part of the series. And rat skull and quarter for size reference.
[img]http://i872.photobucket.com/albums/ab28…]
[img]http://i872.photobucket.com/albums/ab28…]
[img]http://i872.photobucket.com/albums/ab28…]

And a mesohippus skull. I did NOT make this. This was a present from my grandmother for my birthday :lol: The cranium and the jaw are from two separate individuals so they don't fit together well. And to top it off the cranium was from a male and the jaw was from a female since the cranium has canines and the jaw lacks them.
[img]http://i872.photobucket.com/albums/ab28…]
[img]http://i872.photobucket.com/albums/ab28…]
Wolf tooth close up.
[img]http://i872.photobucket.com/albums/ab28…]

Threnody Mon, 01/24/2011 - 16:02

Back to the confounding mystery of the missing premolars!

The large canines are the ones that eventually become sexually dimorphic later in their evolution, so at this point both male female phenadodus have them. The 2 missing teeth are the upper first premolars that would later turn into wolf teeth. Hyracotherium, the next in the line of evolution have these teeth which are fairly prominent premolars that almost look like a second set of canines.

[img]http://i872.photobucket.com/albums/ab28…]

I guess it could be possible that these premolars were sexually dimorphic in the phenacodus since we don't know if it really did precede hyracotherium. It could just be a very close cousin of the genus it did evolve from. :?: