2017/08/01 by David P. Hocking, Felix G. Marx, Erich M. G. Fitzgerald +1 · 2 citations
Environmental Science · Social Sciences · Earth and Planetary Sciences · #Marine animal studies overview #Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology #Underwater Acoustics Research #Baleen #Biology #Dentition #Zoology #Whale #Predation #Cetacea #Tooth wear #Ecology #Paleontology #Orthodontics
paper · pdf · doi:10.1098/rsbl.2017.0348
openalex publication_date 2017/08/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
The origin of baleen whales (Mysticeti), the largest animals on Earth, is closely tied to their signature filter-feeding strategy. Unlike their modern relatives, archaic whales possessed a well-developed, heterodont adult dentition. How these teeth were used, and what role their function and subsequent loss played in the emergence of filter feeding, is an enduring mystery. In particular, it has been suggested that elaborate tooth crowns may have enabled stem mysticetes to filter with their postcanine teeth in a manner analogous to living crabeater and leopard seals, thereby facilitating the transition to baleen-assisted filtering. Here we show that the teeth of archaic mysticetes are as sharp as those of terrestrial carnivorans, raptorial pinnipeds and archaeocetes, and thus were capable of capturing and processing prey. By contrast, the postcanine teeth of leopard and crabeater seals are markedly blunter, and clearly unsuited to raptorial feeding. Our results suggest that mysticetes never passed through a tooth-based filtration phase, and that the use of teeth and baleen in early whales was not functionally connected. Continued selection for tooth sharpness in archaic mysticetes is best explained by a feeding strategy that included both biting and suction, similar to that of most living pinnipeds and, probably, early toothed whales (Odontoceti).