2.9" Rooted Plesiosaur (Zarafasaura) Tooth - Morocco

This is a very well preserved, fully rooted Plesiosaur (Zarafasaura oceanis) tooth still embedded in the matrix it was found in. Rooted teeth are quite rare in fact, less than 1% of the teeth I get from the phosphate deposits still have a root attached. The tooth itself is in wonderful condition with no feeding wear. There are also some fish fossils in the matrix with it including a vertebrae. There are a few small areas of gap fill restoration on the crown of the tooth.

Plesiosaurs where long-necked marine reptiles with four flippers that appeared in the Triassic and died out along with the dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous period. They reached quite larges sizes, some species as long at 17 meters, and caught slow moving prey. Plesiosaurs breathed air, and bore live young; there are indications that they were warm-blooded.

This species of of Plesiosaur was redescribed from Plesiosaurus mauritanicus to Zarafasaura oceanis in a 2011 paper which can be found at:

A NEW SPECIMEN OF THE ELASMOSAURID PLESIOSAUR ZARAFASAURA OCEANIS FROM THE UPPER CRETACEOUS (MAASTRICHTIAN)OF MOROCCO