What is it about?
Replacement teeth is a key parameter for evaluating if an animal lives slower or faster. Ecological factors of the habitat may deviate this tendency. This is the case of Myotragus balearicus (extinct caprine from Mallorca), which show a slow signature of dental eruption (indicating that had a slower life history), but also had an acceleration of the absolute pace of development of the permanent incisors showing a decoupling of the pace of development. This can be explained by different selection pressures that this species had in the islands. Moreover, the most ancient Myotragus of Mallorca did not have this pattern.
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Why is it important?
This is the first fossil evidence of an advance of the emergence of the permanent first incisor along an anagenetic mammalian lineage. Knowing the biology of fossil that lived in islands is always of paramount interest for understanding the geological pattern coined as island rule.
Perspectives
The replacement teeth is used sometimes to predict the life history strategy of an insular species. As it is observed previously with paleohistology, Myotragus balearicus had a small size and a slower life history. What happens in islands? Which are the ecological pressures that we found there? All this helps to understand how this works.
PhD Blanca Moncunill-Solé
Universidade da Coruna
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: First Fossil Evidence for the Advance of Replacement Teeth Coupled with Life History Evolution along an Anagenetic Mammalian Lineage, PLoS ONE, July 2013, PLOS,
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0070743.
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