The adaptive significance of enamel loss in the mandibular incisors of cercopithecine primates (Mammalia: Cercopithecidae): a finite element modelling study.

ABSTRACT: In several primate groups enamel is reduced or absent from the lingual (tongue) side of the mandibular incisor crowns akin to other placental and marsupial mammalian groups such as rodents, lagomorphs and wombats. Here we investigate the presumed adaptation of crowns with unilateral enamel to the incision of tough foods in cercopithecines, an Old World monkey subfamily, using a simulation approach. We developed and validated a finite element model of the lower central incisor of the rhesus macaque (Macaca mulatta) with labial enamel only to compute three-dimensional displacements and maximum principal stresses on the crown subjected to compressive loads varying in orientation. Moreover, we developed a model of a macaque incisor with enamel present on both labial and lingual aspects, thus r

SUBMITTER: Kupczik K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4022739 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature