ArticleJournal of anatomy2017
Mosasaurs and snakes have a periodontal ligament: timing and extent of calcification, not tissue complexity, determines tooth attachment mode in reptiles.
Article in Journal of anatomy, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers.
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17 citing papers in PubMed, 35 citations in OpenAlex.
- A description of dental microanatomy and implantation geometry in Chamaeleonidae.Journal of anatomy · 2026Article
- Tooth-bone attachment tissue is produced by cells with a mixture of odontoblastic and osteoblastic features in reptiles.Journal of anatomy · 2026Article
- "King of the Riverside", a multi-proxy approach offers a new perspective on mosasaurs before their extinction.BMC zoology · 2025Article
- Reassessment of Xenodens calminechari with a discussion of tooth morphology in mosasaurs.Anatomical record (Hoboken, N.J. : 2007) · 2025Article
- 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
- 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
- A conserved tooth resorption mechanism in modern and fossil snakes.Nature communications · 2023Article
- X-ray microtomography imaging of craniofacial hard tissues in selected reptile species with different types of dentition.GigaScience · 2022Article
- Plicidentine and the repeated origins of snake venom fangs.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2021Article
- Tooth attachment and pleurodont implantation in lizards: Histology, development, and evolution.Journal of anatomy · 2021Article
- Squamate egg tooth development revisited using three-dimensional reconstructions of brown anole (Anolis sagrei, Squamata, Dactyloidae) dentition.Journal of anatomy · 2020Article
- Dental ontogeny in extinct synapsids reveals a complex evolutionary history of the mammalian tooth attachment system.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2018Article
- Article
- Current Perspectives on Tooth Implantation, Attachment, and Replacement in Amniota.Frontiers in physiology · 2018Review
- Histological evidence for a dynamic dental battery in hadrosaurid dinosaurs.Scientific reports · 2017Article
- Skull morphology and histology indicate the presence of an unexpected buccal soft tissue structure in dinosaurs.Journal of anatomyArticle
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Squamates present a unique challenge to our understanding of dental evolution in amniotes because they are the only extant tooth-bearing group for which a ligamentous tooth attachment is considered to be absent. This has led to the assumption that mammals and crocodilians have convergently evolved a ligamentous tooth attachment, composed of root cementum, periodontal ligament, and alveolar bone, whereas squamates are thought to possess a single bone of attachment tissue that fuses teeth to the jaws. The identity and homology of tooth attachment tissues between squamates, crocodilians, and mammals have thus been a focal point of debate for decades. We provide a novel interpretation of the mineralized attachment tissues in two focal taxa in this debate, mosasaurids and snakes, and compare dental tissue histology with that of the extant crocodilian Caiman sclerops. We identify a periodontal ligament in these squamates that usually exists temporarily as a soft connective tissue anchoring each tooth to the alveolar bone. We also identify two instances where complete calcification of the periodontal ligament does not occur: in a durophagous mosasaur, and in the hinged teeth of fossil and modern snakes. We propose that the periodontal ligament rapidly calcifies in the majority of mosasaurids and snakes, ankylosing the tooth to the jaw. This gives the appearance of a single, bone-like tissue fusing the tooth to the jaw in ankylosed teeth, but is simply the end stage of dental tissue ontogeny in most snakes and mosasaurids.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.