Re: small Moroccan teeth

["Thomas R. Holtz, Jr." <th81@umail.umd.edu>]

At 03:21 PM 3/21/99 +0100, Thomas Hammann wrote:

>I've got just another question about Moroccan teeth.
>I've seen very small teeth (only 1.2 cm!) of a Moroccan theropod on a German 
>fossil show. The seller told me that these teeth could belong to
_Elaphrosaurus 
>spec._. 
>But I don't think so because _Elaphrosaurus spec._ is not found in Morocco at 
>all. For me the teeth look exactly like (very small) teeth of 
>_Carcharodontosaurus saharicus_. 
>Does someone has an idea to which species they could belong?

You are quite probably correct.

As I've pointed out before, we don't know what _Elaphrosaurus_ teeth look
like (since we don't have an _Elaphrosaurus_ head...).  Futhermore, true
_Elaphrosaurus_ is an Upper Jurassic East African genus, and is not known
from mid-Cretaceous North Africa.  Some people have referred small-to-mid
sized theropod bones from mid-Cretaceous North Africa to _Elaphrosaurus_,
but not on the basis of diagnostic features.

Hope this helps.

Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
Vertebrate Paleontologist     Webpage: http://www.geol.umd.edu
Dept. of Geology              Email:tholtz@geol.umd.edu
University of Maryland        Phone:301-405-4084
College Park, MD  20742       Fax:  301-314-9661