Publication Date:
2006-08-26
Description:
The most obvious key synapomorphy of the therian mammals is the tribosphenic pattern of their molars. Tribosphenic teeth are capable of both shearing and grinding, which substantially increase effectiveness of food processing and, in turn, permit evolution of a wide range of dietary specializations. Functional tribospheny developed repeatedly during mammalian evolution but was successful only in the Boreosphenida. The earliest stage in the development of boreosphenidan tribospheny has remained poorly understood, being documented only by lower molars of aegialodontids. Here, we report a known upper molar of an aegialodontid mammal, Kielantherium, from the Early Cretaceous of Mongolia.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Lopatin, Alexey V -- Averianov, Alexander O -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2006 Aug 25;313(5790):1092.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Paleontological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, Profsojuznaya ul. 123, Moscow 117997, Russia. alopat@paleo.ru〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16931755" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Animals
;
*Biological Evolution
;
*Dentition
;
History, Ancient
;
*Mammals/anatomy & histology
;
Molar/*anatomy & histology
;
Mongolia
;
Paleodontology
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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