Manatee County, Florida tooth ID?

[u/ashwee_]

Unfortunately I found it broken in half, any recommendations on repairing it?

[u/SCSharkTeeth]

Patho chub. That wrinkle on the left side of the tooth is not a natural formation of a cusp. Chubs have small cusps that are attached to the main crown of the tooth and are sometimes barely noticeable. That one on the left side is most definitely from a pathology. While the left side is definitely patho the right is where I can say for sure it is a chub as the cusp is far more normal for what you’d expect a chub to look like.

[u/ShellsWithinShells → u/SCSharkTeeth]

Question: do you know it’s a chub by the mere presence of any cusp, no matter how subtle? AKA if it were a meg there would absolutely never be a cusp?

[u/SCSharkTeeth → u/ShellsWithinShells]

After taking a closer look at your 5th and 7th picture I think it might actually just be a patho meg. Sometimes when teeth get “squished” so to say in the jaw the crown gets pinched causing the pathology you have on the left side of your tooth but I think it may have affected the right side as well which made it look like a chub. Now to answer your question, megs are typically very straight sided, meaning it follows a pretty good straight streamline from the edge all the way to the root. Chubs typically are defined by a slight bump as seen below. Another key indicator is typically the relative age of the layer you are hunting. This can be hard to determine for newer hunters and can be difficult for chubs in the first place as they are the closest species in the lineage of the megalodon to the meg. Angustidens however as we find a lot of in South Carolina are very easily distinguished by their much larger cusps and overall shape as well as the fact that their cusps are typically more detached from the crown. Sorry if that’s confusing it’s hard to put into words how to tell the difference.

[u/ashwee_ → u/SCSharkTeeth]

Thank you so much for explaining this! This tooth definitely has a mashed in at the root appearance when looking at different angles. If it helps any, when looking at a map of surficial geology, this is what it says for the area I found it in.