Dental eruption in afrotherian mammals.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Afrotheria comprises a newly recognized clade of mammals with strong molecular evidence for its monophyly. In contrast, morphological data uniting its diverse constituents, including elephants, sea cows, hyraxes, aardvarks, sengis, tenrecs and golden moles, have been difficult to identify. Here, we suggest relatively late eruption of the permanent dentition as a shared characteristic of afrotherian mammals. This characteristic and other features (such as vertebral anomalies and testicondy) recall the phenotype of a human genetic pathology (cleidocranial dysplasia), correlations with which have not been explored previously in the context of character evolution within the recently established phylogeny of living mammalian clades.

Results

Although data on the absolut

SUBMITTER: Asher RJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2292681 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature