Accommodation of Dental Variations During Jaw Growth in Ungulate Mammals.

ABSTRACT: The growth of teeth and jaw bones is intimately linked in vertebrates, especially in mammals due to their specialized dentition and limited body growth. However, the relative patterns of growth and level of integration (i.e., co-variation) of these structures are insufficiently known, which hinders our ability to understand how the jaw bones accommodate the diverse dental shapes and eruption patterns observed in mammals. Here, we studied the cranial ontogenetic series of 23 ungulate species among artiodactyls, perissodactyls, and hyracoids having different dental shapes and eruption patterns. We evaluated the variation of the teeth-palate complex, as well as the co-variation of teeth and palate during growth using 3D geometric morphometrics. We found a major ontogenetic component common to

SUBMITTER: Gomes Rodrigues H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12626908 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature