The dentition is an extremely important organ in mammals with variation in timing and
sequence of eruption, crown morphology, and tooth size enabling a range of behavioral …

Teeth are generally the best-preserved elements among mammal fossil remains and are
highly diagnostic characters. Consequently, much mammalian paleontological, systematic …

Because teeth are the most easily preserved part of the vertebrate skeleton and are
particularly morphologically variable in mammals, studies of fossil mammals rely heavily on …

Establishing the relationship between craniodental morphology and dietary ecology in
extant species permits inferences to be made about the ecology and biology of fossil …

Background Developmental processes that underpin morphological variation have become
a focus of interest when attempting to interpret macroevolutionary patterns. Recently, the …

Vertebrate teeth are highly mineralized dermal tissues composed, principally, of bioapatite
making them highly resistant to physical and chemical alteration over geologic time scales …

The evolution of increased tooth crown height is considered to be an adaptation for coping
with excessive rates of dental wear associated with abrasive herbivorous diets, such as …

Iterative segments such as teeth or limbs are a widespread characteristic of living
organisms. While their proportions may be governed by similar developmental rules in …

Mammal tooth morphology and function correlate strongly with dietary ecology, and
convergence is a major feature of mammalian tooth evolution. Yet, function and ecology are …

The dietary adaptations of fossil taxa can be inferred through comparative morphological
studies of extant taxa. The goal of this dissertation is to augment the existing quantitative …