Premium Desmostylus hesperus Teeth from California
"from the Spinner Estate Collection"

Description: Presented is a premium double specimen of Desmostylus hesperus teeth clusters. The smaller one has 8 teeth and the larger one six teeth. They reside comfortably on a coquina of shelly sandstone with a flat base. Note the robust shiny enamel on the teeth. I suggest you not delay on purchasing this piece if you are seriously interested. It is the last of two double specimens that I am
currently offering. There will be no more after this is sold.

These are the teeth of Desmostylus hesperus, an extinct placental mammal from the Middle Miocene Period some 14 - 19 million years ago. Marsh first described Desmostylus in 1888 from fossils in marine deposits in Alameda County, California. Because of their limited stratigraphic range (Western North America and Japan), the unusual form of teeth that confounds determining what they ate, and their apparent combined terrestrial and marine lifestyle, they are placed in their own Order Desmostyidia within Class Mammalia. Desmostylus leaves no direct descendents, but is putatively an ancient, genetic cousin to the sea cow and elephant. Desmostylus teeth are quite rare, especially ones of this excellence. (Please read the last paragraph for more details of how I obtained it.)

The name Desmostylus comes from the Greek and means, "linked pillars". These semi-marine mammals had bodies resembling a hippopotamus, with four stout legs and four small tusks. They might have paddled around shallow water crushing shellfish for food with their heavy, columnar teeth or they may have been herbivores, or omnivores. Their closest living relatives are the Proboscidea (elephants) and Sirenia (manatees), such that they belong to the clade Afrotheria. Desmostylians grew nearly two meters in length and are thought to have weighed more than 1500 pounds.

At the end of October, 2010 I acquired a large percentage of the Paul Spinner Collection from his fossil estate manager. Paul was a Native American who worked for the U.S. Forrest Service and lived in the western side of Kern County, California. During the 1950s through the early 1980s he accumulated his collection from Fresno county, the Lompoc area fish beds, Sharktooth Hill bone beds, Kern County Brea (tar) pits, etc. As his reputation grew for having the largest privately held and valuable fossil collection from these areas, he developed a special relationship with the University of California Santa Barbara department of Paleontology as well as the La Brea Tar Pits staff. This unique collection of Southern California fossils was primarily from the Cenozoic, with an emphasis on the Miocene.

Please keep in mind that this was a unique acquisition. I acquired only two tusks and nine teeth specimens. Of those acquisitions, only four teeth are still available. Once they are gone, there will sadly be no more.