Fossil Friday this week continues our examination of Pleistocene specimens from Temecula Valley, this time with a partial lower jaw from the horse Equus occidentalis.The image above was prepared for our poster at next month's regional GSA meeting in Flagstaff. It shows the dentary in medial, dorsal, and lateral views. The scale bar is 10 cm. In the dorsal view, you can see the occlusal surfaces of the last four teeth in the jaw, which in this case are (from front to back) the 4th deciduous premolar, and molars 1, 2, and 3. The 3rd molar had only just started to erupt, suggesting that this horse was about 3.5 years old when it died. In an oblique anteromedial view (actually a screenshot from a photogrammetric model), you can see the unerupted 4th premolar underneath the 4th deciduous premolar, and, in the background, the deep crown of the 2nd molar where the side of the jaw is broken:
We've made a photogrammetric model of this specimen, and printed a 3d replica that we've already started using in programming:
The 3D file of this specimen is available for download at WSC's Sketchfab site at https://skfb.ly/6yCx8.