The Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, PA
maintains the online
Thomas Jefferson Fossil Collection and a web page about
Dr. Joseph Leidy. He is
referred to as The Father of American Vertebrate Paleontology. You will find there a link to a page prepared in his honor called
Extinct Western Vertebrates (1873): Plate XXXIII
Dr. Leidy identified the four molars there as belonging to Equus occidentalis. I labelled a copy of his
image below left as "Dr. Leidy's Equus occidentalis".
In 1996, I placed a number of teeth in my Hallquist collection. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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You see above three image versions pm2, pm3, pm4, and M1. How do you think they compare with
E. occidentalis? Premolar pm2 is more worn than the specimen used as a model for Dr. Leidy's
leftmost tooth. My molar M1 shows a pit due to mechanical damage or decay. I used an Intel Create and Share PCI camera. I believe much better images would have been obtained if I had used my Olympus OM-1 35 mm film camera and a macrobellows arrangement. |
I, Glenn Bowie, used teeth mentioned above in teaching a geology class to elementary school children in 2005. During March 2009, I read online texts and examined images in websites devoted to equus occidentalis paleogeology, to equine dentistry, and veterinary science. An Intel Model CS430 webcam was used on March 30 to obtain seven images of upper left pm2.
On March 31, an Intel Play QX3 microscope backed by modern qx3plus software was used at magnifications 10, 60, and 200X. I focussed on material attached to a root. One patch is clearly jawbone remnant. The other consists of fibres and particles of silica. The horse was digesting windblown sand or loess when he perished. He became extinct at the close of the most recent Ice Age. ![]() ![]() ![]() In order to show how well the three premolars can be fitted together, let me use putty to separate them, and then remove the spaceing material.
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It is time to look more carefully at the three upper left molars. The focus will be on m1. ![]()
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![]() Until this point, I have refrained from using language to describe teeth details. I was trained in engineering and earth sciences. I am completely dumb about biological sciences. However, I must be willing to accept the fact that I am going to be wrong at times. My online geology class has an image in which grains of loess are clearly evident. The following image looks down at a particular part of the crown of molar m1 where some rounded silica sand grains can be seen amongst other material. They are loess. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Equus occidentalis From: Glenn Bowie (glennbowie@live.com) Sent: Tue 3/24/09 9:48 PM To: bmacfadd@flmnh.ufl.edu; egilmore@ansp.org; wings@si.edu
May I refer to you by your first name, Bruce?
I told him that I think my equine teeth and bone collection is
The collection site included loess. Some of the teeth seem to be |