Clustering crocodylian dental morphology: Insights into functional adaptations, diet, and ontogeny.

ABSTRACT: Crocodylians have often been grouped into ecomorphological categories based on snout characters and diet, but quantitative dental morphology has rarely been used for this purpose. We collected Euclidean measurements from the teeth of 18 extant crocodylian species spanning a range of sizes and snout ecomorphotypes, normalized the data for size heterodonty using regression analyses, grouped the crowns into eight dental sections along the arcade, and ran a K-means cluster analysis to cluster individuals based on shape heterodonty. Five clusters emerged, each reflecting different degrees of gracility or robustness of crowns and their variation along the jaw arcade. These morphological clusters showed a connection to snout shape, prey preference, and feeding ecology, particularly prey size and

SUBMITTER: Testin JJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12682598 | biostudies-literature | 2026 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature