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Dental replacement in Mesozoic birds: evidence from newly discovered Brazilian enantiornithines

Polyphyodonty—multiple tooth generations—in Mesozoic birds has been confirmed since the nineteenth century. Their dental cycle had been assessed through sparse data from tooth roots revealed through broken jawbones and disattached teeth. However, detailed descriptions of their tooth cycling are lack...

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Autores principales: Wu, Yun-Hsin, Chiappe, Luis M., Bottjer, David J., Nava, William, Martinelli, Agustín G.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8484441/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34593843
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-98335-8
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author Wu, Yun-Hsin
Chiappe, Luis M.
Bottjer, David J.
Nava, William
Martinelli, Agustín G.
author_facet Wu, Yun-Hsin
Chiappe, Luis M.
Bottjer, David J.
Nava, William
Martinelli, Agustín G.
author_sort Wu, Yun-Hsin
collection PubMed
description Polyphyodonty—multiple tooth generations—in Mesozoic birds has been confirmed since the nineteenth century. Their dental cycle had been assessed through sparse data from tooth roots revealed through broken jawbones and disattached teeth. However, detailed descriptions of their tooth cycling are lacking, and the specifics of their replacement patterns remain largely unknown. Here we present unprecedented µCT data from three enantiornithine specimens from the Upper Cretaceous of southeastern Brazil. The high resolution µCT data show an alternating dental replacement pattern in the premaxillae, consistent with the widespread pattern amongst extinct and extant reptiles. The dentary also reveals dental replacement at different stages. These results strongly suggest that an alternating pattern was typical of enantiornithine birds. µCT data show that new teeth start lingually within the alveoli, resorb roots of functional teeth and migrate labially into their pulp cavities at an early stage, similar to modern crocodilians. Our results imply that the control mechanism for tooth cycling is conserved during the transition between non-avian reptiles and birds. These first 3D reconstructions of enantiornithine dental replacement demonstrate that 3D data are essential to understand the evolution and deep homology of archosaurian tooth cycling.
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spelling pubmed-84844412021-10-04 Dental replacement in Mesozoic birds: evidence from newly discovered Brazilian enantiornithines Wu, Yun-Hsin Chiappe, Luis M. Bottjer, David J. Nava, William Martinelli, Agustín G. Sci Rep Article Polyphyodonty—multiple tooth generations—in Mesozoic birds has been confirmed since the nineteenth century. Their dental cycle had been assessed through sparse data from tooth roots revealed through broken jawbones and disattached teeth. However, detailed descriptions of their tooth cycling are lacking, and the specifics of their replacement patterns remain largely unknown. Here we present unprecedented µCT data from three enantiornithine specimens from the Upper Cretaceous of southeastern Brazil. The high resolution µCT data show an alternating dental replacement pattern in the premaxillae, consistent with the widespread pattern amongst extinct and extant reptiles. The dentary also reveals dental replacement at different stages. These results strongly suggest that an alternating pattern was typical of enantiornithine birds. µCT data show that new teeth start lingually within the alveoli, resorb roots of functional teeth and migrate labially into their pulp cavities at an early stage, similar to modern crocodilians. Our results imply that the control mechanism for tooth cycling is conserved during the transition between non-avian reptiles and birds. These first 3D reconstructions of enantiornithine dental replacement demonstrate that 3D data are essential to understand the evolution and deep homology of archosaurian tooth cycling. Nature Publishing Group UK 2021-09-30 /pmc/articles/PMC8484441/ /pubmed/34593843 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-98335-8 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Article
Wu, Yun-Hsin
Chiappe, Luis M.
Bottjer, David J.
Nava, William
Martinelli, Agustín G.
Dental replacement in Mesozoic birds: evidence from newly discovered Brazilian enantiornithines
title Dental replacement in Mesozoic birds: evidence from newly discovered Brazilian enantiornithines
title_full Dental replacement in Mesozoic birds: evidence from newly discovered Brazilian enantiornithines
title_fullStr Dental replacement in Mesozoic birds: evidence from newly discovered Brazilian enantiornithines
title_full_unstemmed Dental replacement in Mesozoic birds: evidence from newly discovered Brazilian enantiornithines
title_short Dental replacement in Mesozoic birds: evidence from newly discovered Brazilian enantiornithines
title_sort dental replacement in mesozoic birds: evidence from newly discovered brazilian enantiornithines
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8484441/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34593843
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-98335-8
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