2018/05/28 by Carlos Mauricio Peredo, Julio S. Peredo, Nicholas D. Pyenson · 28 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Environmental Science · #Baleen #Biology #Clade #Dentition #Ecology #Evolutionary biology #Extant taxon #Fossil Record #Geology and Paleoclimatology Research #Human echolocation #Mammal #Marine and coastal plant biology #Marine animal studies overview #Paleontology #Phylogenetic tree #Predation #Whale #Zoology
paper · doi:10.1017/pab.2018.9
published in Paleobiology 44(3), 434-443 (Cambridge University Press)
openalex publication_date 2018/05/28 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Abstract The fossil record of mammal dentition provides crucial insight into key ecological and functional transitions throughout mammalian evolutionary history. For cetaceans, both extant clades differ markedly from their stem ancestors; neither retains the differentiated dentition or the tribosphenic molars characteristic of Mammalia. We used quantitative measures of dental complexity across fossil and living cetaceans to identify a trend toward dental simplicity through the Neogene. Both extant cetacean clades depart from the ancestral mammalian condition and concurrently converge upon a reduced and simplified dentition; modern mysticetes all have become entirely edentulous (at birth), and living odontocetes possess teeth as single-rooted, conical pegs. These two parallel trends accompany major shifts in feeding strategy (i.e., filter feeding in mysticetes and echolocation in odontocetes), suggesting that these evolutionary innovations for prey acquisition are enabling factors for the loss of prey processing and subsequent convergence on dental simplification.