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The earliest herbivorous marine reptile and its remarkable jaw apparatus
Newly discovered fossils of the Middle Triassic reptile Atopodentatus unicus call for a radical reassessment of its feeding behavior. The skull displays a pronounced hammerhead shape that was hitherto unknown. The long, straight anterior edges of both upper and lower jaws were lined with batteries o...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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American Association for the Advancement of Science
2016
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Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4928886/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27386529 http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1501659 |
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author | Chun, Li Rieppel, Olivier Long, Cheng Fraser, Nicholas C. |
author_facet | Chun, Li Rieppel, Olivier Long, Cheng Fraser, Nicholas C. |
author_sort | Chun, Li |
collection | PubMed |
description | Newly discovered fossils of the Middle Triassic reptile Atopodentatus unicus call for a radical reassessment of its feeding behavior. The skull displays a pronounced hammerhead shape that was hitherto unknown. The long, straight anterior edges of both upper and lower jaws were lined with batteries of chisel-shaped teeth, whereas the remaining parts of the jaw rami supported densely packed needle-shaped teeth forming a mesh. The evidence indicates a novel feeding mechanism wherein the chisel-shaped teeth were used to scrape algae off the substrate, and the plant matter that was loosened was filtered from the water column through the more posteriorly positioned tooth mesh. This is the oldest record of herbivory within marine reptiles. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4928886 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2016 |
publisher | American Association for the Advancement of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-49288862016-07-06 The earliest herbivorous marine reptile and its remarkable jaw apparatus Chun, Li Rieppel, Olivier Long, Cheng Fraser, Nicholas C. Sci Adv Research Articles Newly discovered fossils of the Middle Triassic reptile Atopodentatus unicus call for a radical reassessment of its feeding behavior. The skull displays a pronounced hammerhead shape that was hitherto unknown. The long, straight anterior edges of both upper and lower jaws were lined with batteries of chisel-shaped teeth, whereas the remaining parts of the jaw rami supported densely packed needle-shaped teeth forming a mesh. The evidence indicates a novel feeding mechanism wherein the chisel-shaped teeth were used to scrape algae off the substrate, and the plant matter that was loosened was filtered from the water column through the more posteriorly positioned tooth mesh. This is the oldest record of herbivory within marine reptiles. American Association for the Advancement of Science 2016-05-06 /pmc/articles/PMC4928886/ /pubmed/27386529 http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1501659 Text en Copyright © 2016, The Authors http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) , which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, so long as the resultant use is not for commercial advantage and provided the original work is properly cited. |
spellingShingle | Research Articles Chun, Li Rieppel, Olivier Long, Cheng Fraser, Nicholas C. The earliest herbivorous marine reptile and its remarkable jaw apparatus |
title | The earliest herbivorous marine reptile and its remarkable jaw apparatus |
title_full | The earliest herbivorous marine reptile and its remarkable jaw apparatus |
title_fullStr | The earliest herbivorous marine reptile and its remarkable jaw apparatus |
title_full_unstemmed | The earliest herbivorous marine reptile and its remarkable jaw apparatus |
title_short | The earliest herbivorous marine reptile and its remarkable jaw apparatus |
title_sort | earliest herbivorous marine reptile and its remarkable jaw apparatus |
topic | Research Articles |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4928886/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27386529 http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1501659 |
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