Hi Nicolae,

I do not have anything like this in my collection of Eocene fish teeth. But yes your teeth could belong to Balistidae. I am sending you a relevant paper by e-mail.

best,

Hello Nicolae. We have similar teeth in our Middle Eocene deposits here in Alabama. In Europe these teeth are assigned to Eotrigonodon, a member of the Balistidae.

Jun

Thank you for your answer. Could you please provide a reference for this assignment to Eotrigonodon?  

Hello Nicolae. There are many references out there, but here are a couple that are available online:

http://biozoojournals.ro/oscsn/cont/27_2/MP03-Ciobanu.pdf

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/295106985_AN_ILLUSTRATED_GUIDE_TO_THE_BRITISH_MIDDLE_EOCENE_VERTEBRATES_Second_Edition

Cheers,

Jun

Research AN ILLUSTRATED GUIDE TO THE BRITISH MIDDLE EOCENE VERTEBRATE...

Thank you for the references.  I know both of them. Indeed these illustrate Eotrogonodon but the teeth I figured above are totally different. Ms. Ciobanu in fact is a colleague of mine and the teeth she illustrates are very flat and they are interpreted as pharyngeal teeth. The figured teeth here are in my opinion oral. Some functional wear marks are consistent with this oral position. 

Hello Nicolae. I absolutely agree that the specimens you have are oral teeth. The ones we have here in Alabama are identical in morphology in that they are mesiodistally compressed, but as with your specimens, have convex mesial and distal edges giving them an oval cross section. In the US teeth with this morphology have traditionally been attributed to Eotrigonodon, and until now, I have never had a reason to question this assignment. However, this conversation has prompted me to take a closer look at my specimens and I too now agree that they represent something different. As Kishor mentioned above, I too agree these are oral teeth from a genus of triggerfish (Balistidae). As far as I know, there is only one genus of Eocene triggerfish that has been described, Gornylistes prodigiosus. Looking at the type description for this taxon, several of the teeth are indeed preserved on the type specimen. Unfortunately, however, the teeth were not described or figured in any great detail so a direct comparison is not possible. With that, it is probably best to temporarily assign our specimens conservatively to the Balistidae only. Tyler 1980, however, noted generic level differences among the incisors of recent Balistidae. Perhaps a more in-depth study of these specimens might at least allow us to place them within a described genus. If you are interested in pursuing such a project, I would be happy to email you high resolution images of the specimens we have here.

Cheers,

Jun

Hello again! I am definitely interested in the subject. I will write to you on e-mail