ArticleScience advances2022
Dental form and function in the early feeding diversification of dinosaurs.
Article in Science advances, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.
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Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed.
- The impact of alignment and scaling on biological inferences from landmark-free morphometrics.Journal of anatomy · 2026Article
- Dinosaur skull geometry does not follow functional optimization trends but facilitates adaptability.iScience · 2025Article
- Sharpening our understanding of saber-tooth biomechanics.Anatomical record (Hoboken, N.J. : 2007) · 2025Review
- Craniomandibular osteology of a new massopodan sauropodomorph (Dinosauria: Sauropodomorpha) from the Late Triassic (latest Norian) of Canton Aargau, Switzerland.Swiss journal of palaeontology · 2025Article
- Enhancing the classification of isolated theropod teeth using machine learning: a comparative study.PeerJ · 2025Article
- The macroecology of Mesozoic dinosaurs.Biology letters · 2024Review
- Inferring the locomotor ecology of two of the oldest fossil squirrels: influence of operationalization, trait, body size and machine learning method.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Divergent strategies in cranial biomechanics and feeding ecology of the ankylosaurian dinosaurs.Scientific reports · 2023Article
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
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Abstract
Dinosaurs evolved a remarkable diversity of dietary adaptations throughout the Mesozoic, but the origins of different feeding modes are uncertain, especially the multiple origins of herbivory. Feeding habits of early dinosaurs have mostly been inferred from qualitative comparisons of dental morphology with extant analogs. Here, we use biomechanical and morphometric methods to investigate the dental morphofunctional diversity of early dinosaurs in comparison with extant squamates and crocodylians and predict their diets using machine learning classification models. Early saurischians/theropods are consistently classified as carnivores. Sauropodomorphs underwent a dietary shift from faunivory to herbivory, experimenting with diverse diets during the Triassic and Early Jurassic, and early ornithischians were likely omnivores. Obligate herbivory was a late evolutionary innovation in both clades. Carnivory is the most plausible ancestral diet of dinosaurs, but omnivory is equally likely under certain phylogenetic scenarios. This early dietary diversity was fundamental in the rise of dinosaurs to ecological dominance.
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