ArticleBMC evolutionary biology2016
Ontogeny reveals function and evolution of the hadrosaurid dinosaur dental battery.
Article in BMC evolutionary biology, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 24 papers.
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Who cites it
24 citing papers in PubMed.
- Cranial anatomy, palaeoneurology, palaeobiology and stratigraphic age of the large-bodied ornithopod,PeerJ · 2026Article
- Rethinking thecodonty: the influence of two centuries of comparative dental anatomy on our understanding of tooth evolution.Biology letters · 2025Review
- The pseudosuchian record in paleohistology: A small review.Anatomical record (Hoboken, N.J. : 2007) · 2025Review
- Resilience of the replacing dentition in adult reptiles.Developmental biology · 2024Review
- Size and shape heterodonty in the early Permian synapsid Mesenosaurus efremovi.Journal of anatomy · 2024Article
- Palaeohistology reveals an unusual periodontium and tooth implantation in a filter-feeding pterodactyloid pterosaur, Pterodaustro guinazui, from the Lower Cretaceous of Argentina.Journal of anatomy · 2023Article
- Multi-proxy dentition analyses reveal niche partitioning between sympatric herbivorous dinosaurs.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Low dinosaur biodiversity in central China 2 million years prior to the end-Cretaceous mass extinction.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2022Article
- Permian hypercarnivore suggests dental complexity among early amniotes.Nature communications · 2022Article
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- Exceptionally simple, rapidly replaced teeth in sauropod dinosaurs demonstrate a novel evolutionary strategy for herbivory in Late Jurassic ecosystems.BMC ecology and evolution · 2021Article
- Tooth attachment and pleurodont implantation in lizards: Histology, development, and evolution.Journal of anatomy · 2021Article
- A new basal hadrosaurid (Dinosauria: Ornithischia) from the latest Cretaceous Kita-ama Formation in Japan implies the origin of hadrosaurids.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Early Jurassic dinosaur fetal dental development and its significance for the evolution of sauropod dentition.Nature communications · 2020Article
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- Retention of fish-like odontode overgrowth in Permian tetrapod dentition supports outside-in theory of tooth origins.Biology letters · 2019Article
- Article
- High-resolution computed tomographic analysis of tooth replacement pattern of the basal neoceratopsian Liaoceratops yanzigouensis informs ceratopsian dental evolution.Scientific reports · 2018Article
- Current Perspectives on Tooth Implantation, Attachment, and Replacement in Amniota.Frontiers in physiology · 2018Review
- Article
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4 authors.
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Abstract
backgroundHadrosaurid dinosaurs, dominant Late Cretaceous herbivores, possessed complex dental batteries with up to 300 teeth in each jaw ramus. Despite extensive interest in the adaptive significance of the dental battery, surprisingly little is known about how the battery evolved from the ancestral dinosaurian dentition, or how it functioned in the living organism. We undertook the first comprehensive, tissue-level study of dental ontogeny in hadrosaurids using several intact maxillary and dentary batteries and compared them to sections of other archosaurs and mammals. We used these comparisons to pinpoint shifts in the ancestral reptilian pattern of tooth ontogeny that allowed hadrosaurids to form complex dental batteries.
resultsComparisons of hadrosaurid dental ontogeny with that of other amniotes reveals that the ability to halt normal tooth replacement and functionalize the tooth root into the occlusal surface was key to the evolution of dental batteries. The retention of older generations of teeth was driven by acceleration in the timing and rate of dental tissue formation. The hadrosaurid dental battery is a highly modified form of the typical dinosaurian gomphosis with a unique tooth-to-tooth attachment that permitted constant and perfectly timed tooth eruption along the whole battery.
conclusionsWe demonstrate that each battery was a highly dynamic, integrated matrix of living replacement and, remarkably, dead grinding teeth connected by a network of ligaments that permitted fine scale flexibility within the battery. The hadrosaurid dental battery, the most complex in vertebrate evolution, conforms to a surprisingly simple evolutionary model in which ancestral reptilian tissue types were redeployed in a unique manner. The hadrosaurid dental battery thus allows us to follow in great detail the development and extended life history of a particularly complex food processing system, providing novel insights into how tooth development can be altered to produce complex dentitions, the likes of which do not exist in any living vertebrate.
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