MAP OF NEW JERSEY
Showing Divisions. Totems. and Trails
North American Beaver (Castoridae)
Castor Canadensis
Castor canadensis is a large semi-aquatic, web-footed rodent. They have a flat, wide tail that acts like a rudder while swimming, a prop for standing, a lever for dragging tree logs & a warning signal when slapped on the water. They have a large, wide head with self sharpening teeth that can cut through wood. The beaver is the largest rodent in North America, an adult can weigh over 80 lbs.
Beavers live by rivers, streams, ponds & lakes. They build dams of sticks, bark, mud & logs that change the course of streams & create ponds. This forms a safe lodge difficult for most predators to enter. They eat aquatic plants & the cambium (soft tissue in new wood & bark) of hard trees. The beaver almost went extinct in the 1930's after many years of over-trapping for their valuable fur. They are now making a come back since trapping is limited & some of their natural predators are endangered with very low populations, like wolves.
Lower Jaw partially fossilized
Artiodactyl mesodont tooth (m3)
Identification using process of elimination
This is the last lower molar on the left side (left m3, in mammal notation). You can tell this from the small lobe at the rear of the tooth. Crown measures 2mm
The animals lifestyle was that of a vegetarian browser, herbivore. You can tell this from the relatively flat occlusal surface, used to shred plants.
The tooth is medium-crowned (mesodont) - not brachyodont (low-crowned) like an omnivorous human or pig, not hypsodont (high-crowned) like grazing animals that eat alot of tough grasses & quickly wear down their teeth, like horses & cows. A mesodont tooth is good for eating relatively soft plant material, like tree & shrub leaves- making this a browser.
You can see the small, non shiny, roots at the bottom, below the crown. the tooth still maintains small labial styles (the little conical cusps on the labial side, between the main lobes of the tooth), left over from the basal cingulum (a shelf at the base of the crown in low-crowned teeth). These become pillars in cattle & bison teeth.
The general group of mammals it belongs to is Artiodactyl (order Artiodactyla, the guys with the cloven hooves, those in whom the axis of the feet runs between the 3rd & 4th digits - not through the third as in human hands & most animals), & from the selenodont pattern you can see the occlusal surface (it means moon toothed & refers to the crescent-shaped wear surfaces. Its like two w's - a labial & a lingual - when the lower jaw moves side-to-side, it helps shred plants against the upper molars). That leaves out the primitive artios, like pigs, peccarys & hippos. Because the tooth isn't hyposodont, we can now eliminate cow, bison, pronghorn & musk ox.
Our match is found in the Cervidae family, which includes deer, moose, elk, and caribou. The tooth is identified as that of a White Tail Deer (Odocoileus virginianus).
The general size of a fossil, in this case, a tooth & commonality of regional fauna is an easy way to quickly narrow down the species. The size of the tooth (2mm crown) would fit that of a small to medium sized browser which would quickly eliminate any large fauna. Then we can look for size specific species common to the region during the holocene. Here the White Tail Deer is a perfect match!
Native American Artifacts This point appears to have been reworked into a drill.
MAP OF NEW JERSEY
Showing Divisions. Totems. and Trails
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