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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 month 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 month ago

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

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

Wow astonishing research, thank you!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I don’t have it here

I assume you cashed it in with the tooth fairy?

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

Der gemeine Waldundwiesenlangzahn

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

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

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

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

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

Is english the C++ of languages?

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

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

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

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

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

Are these serrations typical? They look quite mean.

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

Yes, very typical.

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

Looks like Beaver to me.

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

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

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

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

[-] hungryphrog 3 points 1 month ago

be the change you want to see in the world

[-] Ledericas@lemm.ee 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month 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 month ago
[-] thisbenzingring@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 1 month 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 month ago

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

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

Yes they do

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

Looks like some kinda rodent teeth

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

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