Potomac River Almosts and Not Quites

Today I headed down to the Potomac shore in Charles County Maryland, in hopes of finding the perfect Otodus tooth, since the only ones I had in my collection were all heavily damaged.  I got there right at low tide, but the conditions were far from ideal.  There was a lot of aquatic grass washed up on the shore, and a lot of shoreline ice.  Plus, the duck hunters were out in force.  It can be hard to concentrate on finding teeth with gunfire erupting nearby every few minutes!

I actually did pretty good, all things considered, but the hunt for the perfect otodus continues.  I found six Otodus teeth with varying degrees of damage.  The nicest one, in the top left of the pic, has a slant height of 1 1/8 inches, and is missing only one cusp.  As for the others, the picture tells the story better than I can.  I also found a decent Striatolamia with a broken tip that still measures 1 1/4 inches, and a nice croc tooth, plus the usual assortment of small teeth, mostly sand tigers.  The small tooth next to the croc tooth in the picture is from a previous hunt about a week ago, and was the only decent tooth found that day.  It could be a juvenile Otodus, but I think it's more likely a Cretolamna tooth.

Good Hunting!

Tom