Complex Dental Structure and Wear Biomechanics in Hadrosaurid Dinosaurs
A Toothy Problem
Large mammalian herbivores such as horses and bison are well known to possess a complex, grinding dentition that facilitates processing of their tough, cellulose-rich plant diet. Hadrosaurid, or duck-billed, dinosaurs also possessed complex teeth, but how this was achieved has been unknown because reptiles typically possess simple teeth. Erickson et al. (p. 98) show how Hadrosaurs evolved teeth composed of six tissues, which allowed for the development of tooth complexity rivaling, or exceeding, that of modern herbivorous mammals.
Abstract
Mammalian grinding dentitions are composed of four major tissues that wear differentially, creating coarse surfaces for pulverizing tough plants and liberating nutrients. Although such dentition evolved repeatedly in mammals (such as horses, bison, and elephants), a similar innovation occurred much earlier (~85 million years ago) within the duck-billed dinosaur group Hadrosauridae, fueling their 35-million-year occupation of Laurasian megaherbivorous niches. How this complexity was achieved is unknown, as reptilian teeth are generally two-tissue structures presumably lacking biomechanical attributes for grinding. Here we show that hadrosaurids broke from the primitive reptilian archetype and evolved a six-tissue dental composition that is among the most sophisticated known. Three-dimensional wear models incorporating fossilized wear properties reveal how these tissues interacted for grinding and ecological specialization.
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Supplementary Material
Summary
Materials and Methods
Supplementary Text
Figs. S1 to S7
Table S1
Captions for Databases S1 to S19
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References and Notes
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Information & Authors
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Published In
Science
Volume 338 | Issue 6103
5 October 2012
5 October 2012
Copyright
Copyright © 2012, American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Submission history
Received: 9 May 2012
Accepted: 24 August 2012
Published in print: 5 October 2012
Acknowledgments
We thank W. Nix, A. Prieto-Marquez, P. Lee, P. Druckenmiller, C. Taylor, and E. McCumiskey for their assistance and NSF (grant EAR 0959029 to G.M.E. and M.A.N.) for research funding. Data described in the paper are archived by the Computer Support Group of the Department of Biological Science at Florida State University as databases S1 to S19.
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