Screening With The Skeeters

Today’s quest of expanding my collection of chubutensis teeth wasn’t quite as successful as my contribution at expanding the breakfast menu of the local insect population. I returned to the area where I found the nice chubbys on the last outing, but to no avail. I spent my first hour being patient, going through many screens without so much as a broken blade, but eventually I had to give in and make a move. I walked upstream a little bit and took a couple of scoops of gravel from behind a partially buried log and came up with a really nice multi-cusped tooth. A little further up from there was a deeper hole that also seemed like it would hold teeth. I spent about an hour there finding two partial Carcharocles blades and a couple of half way decent “typicals” but not much else, so I decided to return to my original spot. Other than one screen that had three decent Carcharias laterals in it, the screens kept coming up empty. I patiently screened the unyielding gravel for another hour, but when I began to see the mosquitos biting right through my shirt, I decided it was time to leave. Upon returning home and going through my sparse finds, I realized that the multi-cusped tooth was in much better condition than I had first thought. What I assumed was a notch of broken enamel at the base of the blade was actually the normal shape of the tooth, formed by a single serration-like bump. The tooth turned out to be a Palaeohypotodus rutoti and in near perfect condition. Not the chubby I was after but certainly a trip maker!