[Proc. Rot. Soc. Victoria, 30 (N.S.), Pt. II., 1918]. 



Art. XIV. — On an Ap'pareyitly Neiv Type of Cetacean Tooth 

 from the Tertiary of Tasmania. 



By FREDERICK CHAPMAN, A.L.S., &c. 



(Palaeontologist, National Museum, Melbourne). 



(With Plate XXVII.) 

 [Read 8th November, 1917]. 



Introduction. 



The fossil tooth which forms the subject of the following note 

 was kindly lent to the National Museum by Mr. H. H. Scott, the 

 Curator of the Victoria Museum, Launceston, with permission for 

 its description. It was bequeathed to the Victoria Museum by Miss 

 Lodder, who found it in 1897 washed up with " two other (1) simi- 

 lar fossils," at the mouth of the Leven, at Ulverstone, about 28 

 miles east of Table Cape. 



It seems probable from the comparable evidence obtainable re- 

 garding the relationship of this tooth that it is allied to that of the 

 Sperm Whale, but with the difference that, instead of being a 

 curved, cylindrical cone, the tooth is much flattened in contour, 

 has an extremely wide base and a bevelled apex or crown. The 

 absence of any true enamel at the apex further points to its rela- 

 tionship with the Physeteridae. It is without doubt a tooth of the 

 m,andibular series, those of the upper jaw in this family being 

 stunted, and are buried in the dense ligamentous gum.ii In view 

 of its apparent distinctness from the living Physeter macroce- 

 phalus a new generic name is here suggested. 



Genus Scaptodon,^ nov. 



Generic Characters. — Tooth conical, depressed, curved, gradu- 

 ally tapering from base to apex, depressed elliptical in section. 

 Root much larger than crown. Base of crown not contracted. 



1. See Tomes: Manual of Dental Anatomy (7th ed., Tims and Hopewell-Smith), 1914, p. 493. 

 Also Ritchie and Rdwards : " On the occurrence of functional teeth in the upper jaw of the sperm 

 whale." Proc. R. Soc. Edin., vol. xxxiii., pt. ii.. No. 15, 1913, pp. 166-168, pi. x.\xiii. Those 

 authors show that the maxillary teeth of Physeter macrocephaltut are flattened at the apex and 

 oval in section ; they bear no resemblance to the present form of tooth. 



2. From CTKaTTTO), to dig, and oSous, a tooth, in allusion to the trowel-ended apex. 



