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We were thinking beaver but don't they have orange teeth? Anyway looking forward to hearing your expertise.

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[-] SoleInvictus 207 points 1 year ago

I need to do chores today, so I instead used my procrastination energy here! It's the molar of a herbivore. Here's what I have:

Definitely not beaver. Beaver incisors are orange and shaped very differently and it's far too large to be a beaver premolar or molar. Wrong morphology anyhow - beaver pre/molars are plicated and this is not. It's also not from a muskrat based on all the same criteria but the plication.

It's definitely from a bovid, not from a caprid or equid. Equids tend to have these bizarre columnar molars, and caprid molars are too small and the wrong shape. Since you're in Germany, that leaves us with cows and European bison.

It's the first or second molar from one of those based on the two cusps; if it had three cusps, it'd be the third molar. What clinches it is the asymmetrical gap in the roots (called a furcation area). Cows have a gap right in the middle of their first and second molars, whereas bison have an off-center gap in their first molar.

Congratulations, you have a bison M1!

Cow X-ray

Bison X-ray

[-] Venus_Ziegenfalle@feddit.org 44 points 1 year ago

Wow thanks so much! That's more exciting than I anticipated actually 😄

[-] Typotyper@sh.itjust.works 39 points 1 year ago

That little part of me thinks you were procrastinating so hard you researched, studied and learnt all that just to put off doing the dishes

[-] SoleInvictus 18 points 1 year ago

Close! I went to college for microbiology, but we got a year-long crash course on general biology, including macroorganisms, plus we had a lot of ag students that I dragged kicking and screaming through their courses as a tutor. I probably spent twenty minutes or so on it because I have a really hazy recall of dentition details.

[-] flango@lemmy.eco.br 15 points 1 year ago

Wow astonishing research, thank you!

[-] SoleInvictus 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Thanks! It was 10 times better than normal because I really didn't want to fight spiders while cleaning out the shed.

[-] lb_o@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago

I haven't seen a post like that in four years! Thank you!

[-] essell@lemmy.world 48 points 1 year ago

Looks to me like it's from a creek in Germany.

[-] udon@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

I'd even go so far to speculate it's from an animal.

[-] danhab99@programming.dev 1 points 1 year ago

It might not be an animal, it might be an African Strangler

[-] roofuskit@lemmy.world 25 points 1 year ago

Can you take a photo next to a euro coin, for scale?

[-] medicsofanarchy@lemmy.world 24 points 1 year ago
[-] Sunsofold@lemmings.world 14 points 1 year ago
[-] Venus_Ziegenfalle@feddit.org 13 points 1 year ago

I don't have it here unfortunately but it's about 5cm/2" long

[-] Greg@lemmy.ca 17 points 1 year ago

I don’t have it here

I assume you cashed it in with the tooth fairy?

[-] magnetosphere@fedia.io 14 points 1 year ago

Germany, you say? It’s local name will be something with WAY too many letters.

Edit: Relax, folks. ALL languages are kinda messy in their own way. There’s a difference between a good-natured joke and heartfelt criticism. I’m not criticizing anything. Plus, I’m speaking English, which is an absolute dumpster fire.

[-] Venus_Ziegenfalle@feddit.org 10 points 1 year ago

Der gemeine Waldundwiesenlangzahn

[-] ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.org 2 points 1 year ago

Nicht aber von Ziege. OP weiß, wie Ziegenfalle aussehen.

[-] GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 year ago

English is perfectly reasonable... if you think taking root words from 3 or 4 languages as a core and fleshing it out with words from another half dozen languages and stitching it together with grammar that kind of matches a couple of those languages is reasonable.

[-] magnetosphere@fedia.io 5 points 1 year ago

Non-native speakers who become seamlessly fluent genuinely impress me.

[-] FerretyFever0@fedia.io 3 points 1 year ago

English is almost entirely just what feels right. No English speaker has perfect English. I'm sure that Germans have the same with all the 16 uses of "the". English just has more.

[-] prex@aussie.zone 2 points 1 year ago

Is english the C++ of languages?

[-] FerretyFever0@fedia.io 3 points 1 year ago

Einhörnchen? (That's squirrel, def not one of those)

[-] ptychodus@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago

As others have guessed, this is a bovid tooth, Bos taurus (cow).

[-] Venus_Ziegenfalle@feddit.org 5 points 1 year ago

Are these serrations typical? They look quite mean.

[-] ptychodus@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Yes, very typical.

[-] Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago

Looks like Beaver to me.

[-] ryathal@sh.itjust.works 8 points 1 year ago
[-] m0darn@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 year ago

Maybe beaver teeth go from orange to brown when they die due to further iron oxidation

[-] johnsonandgoldfish@lemm.ee 7 points 1 year ago

where's the "yo momma" answers? I'm disappointed

[-] hungryphrog 3 points 1 year ago

be the change you want to see in the world

[-] Ledericas@lemm.ee 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

beavers teeth has iron hence the orange teeth. most mammals teeth are based on apatite. some animals have other metals like zinc or iron.

[-] Brunbrun6766@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago
[-] thisbenzingring@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 1 year ago

A bison in Germany?

possibly a bovine, maybe buffalo but not a bison unless its in the US

[-] Venus_Ziegenfalle@feddit.org 1 points 1 year ago

Isn't that some kind of incisor? Do they have those? 😅

[-] Brunbrun6766@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Yes they do

[-] swelter_spark@reddthat.com 3 points 1 year ago

I found a very similar one, also in Germany, many years ago. I figured mine was a cow tooth, although I'm not sure how old it was. Most people no longer kept cows in that town at the time that I lived there.

[-] frenchfryenjoyer@lemmings.world 3 points 1 year ago

Looks like some kinda rodent teeth

this post was submitted on 28 Jun 2025
183 points (100.0% liked)

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