Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-9q27g Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-22T00:22:40.788Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Fabricational noise in elephant dentitions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 April 2016

V. Louise Roth
V. Louise Roth*
Affiliation:
Department of Zoology, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina 27706
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

A marked retardation of dental ontogeny characterizes the family Elephantidae. As a consequence of this retardation, elephant teeth are subject to the forces of mastication, eruption, and progression while still in a developing and pliant stage. As specimens described here illustrate, the mechanical forces are often sufficient to deform the gross morphology of dentitions. Morphological variation in elephant teeth can be regarded as “fabricational noise”—revealing information about the dynamic context in which the teeth develop. Accordingly, dental variation is less species-specific in elephants than in other mammals. The fossil record may comprise fewer species of elephants than is generally believed, and trends inferred to reflect rapid evolution within this family may in fact reflect phenotypic plasticity.

Type
Articles
Information
Paleobiology , Volume 15 , Issue 2 , Spring 1989 , pp. 165 - 179
Copyright
Copyright © The Paleontological Society 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Literature Cited

Butler, P. M. 1982. Some problems of the ontogeny of tooth patterns. Pp. 44–51. In Kurtén, B. (ed.), Teeth—Form, Function, and Evolution. Columbia University Press; New York.Google Scholar
Colyer, F. 1936. Variations and Diseases of the Teeth of Animals. John Bale, Sons and Danielsson, Limited; London.Google Scholar
Cooke, H. B. S. 1947. Variation in the molars of the living African elephant and a critical revision of the fossil Proboscidea of Southern Africa. American Journal of Science 245:434–457, 492–517.Google Scholar
Currey, J. D. 1984. The Mechanical Adaptations of Bones. Princeton University Press; Princeton, New Jersey.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davis, D. D. 1949. Comparative anatomy and the evolution of vertebrates. Pp. 64–89. In Jepsen, G. L., Mayr, E., and Simpson, G. G., (eds.), Genetics, Paleontology and Evolution. Princeton University Press; Princeton, New Jersey.Google Scholar
Gaunt, W. A., and Miles, A. E. W. 1967. Fundamental aspects of tooth morphogenesis. Pp. 151–197. In Miles, A. E. W. (ed.), Structural and Chemical Organization of Teeth. Academic Press; New York.Google Scholar
Herpin, A. 1933. Un point particulier de la morphologie des molaires des Éléphants expliqué par l'action des causes mécaniques. Archives du Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle (Paris) 6:125–128.Google Scholar
Hickman, C. S. 1980. Gastropod radulae and the assessment of form in evolutionary paleontology. Paleobiology 6:276–294.Google Scholar
Hutchinson, G. E. 1981. Random adaptation and imitation in human evolution. American Scientist 69:161–165.Google Scholar
Kurtén, B., and Anderson, E. 1980. Pleistocene Mammals of North America. Columbia University Press; New York.Google Scholar
Landman, N. H., Rye, D. M., and Shelton, K. L. 1983. Early ontogeny of Eutrephoceras compared to Recent Nautilus and Mesozoic ammonites: evidence from shell morphology and light stable isotopes. Paleobiology 9:269–279.Google Scholar
Laws, R. M. 1966. Age criteria for the African elephant Loxodonta a. africana. East African Wildlife Journal 4:1–37.Google Scholar
Laws, R. M., and Parker, I. S. C. 1968. Recent studies on elephant populations in East Africa. Pp. 319–359. In Crawford, M. A. (ed.), Comparative Nutrition of Wild Animals. Symposium of the Zoological Society of London 21.Google Scholar
Madden, C. T. 1981. Mammoths of North America. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Colorado. Boulder, Colorado.Google Scholar
Maglio, V. J. 1972. Evolution of mastication in the Elephantidae. Evolution 26:638–658.Google Scholar
Maglio, V. J. 1973. Origin and evolution of the Elephantidae. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 63:1–149.Google Scholar
McKay, G. M. 1973. Behavior and ecology of the Asiatic elephant in southeastern Ceylon. Smithsonian Contributions to Zoology 125:1–113.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Minkoff, E. C. 1983. Evolutionary Biology. Addison-Wesley Publishing Company; Reading, Massachusetts.Google Scholar
Orr, P. C. 1968. Prehistory of Santa Rosa Island. Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History; Santa Barbara, California.Google Scholar
Osborn, H.F. 1942. Proboscidea. American Museum Press; New York.Google Scholar
Rachootin, S. P., and Thomson, K. S. 1981. Epigenetics, paleontology, and evolution. Pp. 181–193. In Scudder, G. G. E., and Reveal, J. L. (eds.), Evolution Today. Proceedings of the Second International Congress of Systematic and Evolutionary Biology. Hart Institute for Botanical Documentation. Carnegie-Mellon University; Pittsburgh.Google Scholar
Raff, R. A., and Kaufman, T. C. 1983. Embryos, Genes, and Evolution. Macmillan Publishing Company; New York.Google Scholar
Reif, W. E. 1973. Morphologie und Skulptur der Haifisch-Zahnkronen. Neues Jahrbuch für Geologie und Paläontologie Abhandlung B 143:39–55.Google Scholar
Roth, V. L. 1982. Dwarf mammoths from the Santa Barbara, California Channel Islands: Size, Shape, Development and Evolution. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Yale University. New Haven, Connecticut.Google Scholar
Roth, V. L. 1984. How elephants grow: heterochrony and the calibration of developmental stages in some living and fossil species. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 4:126–145.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roth, V. L.In press. Dwarfism and variability in the Santa Rosa Island mammoth: an interspecific comparison of limb-bone sizes and shapes in elephants. In Hochberg, F. G., Recent Advances in Channel Islands Research: Proceedings of the Third California Islands Symposium. Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History; Santa Barbara.Google Scholar
Roth, V. L.In preparation. Species diversity and variability in the Elephantidae: are elephants overly split?Google Scholar
Roth, V. L., and Shoshani, J. 1988. Dental identification and age determination in Elephas maximus. Journal of Zoology 214:567–588.Google Scholar
Schour, I., and Massler, M. 1940. Studies in tooth development: the growth pattern of human teeth, part II. Journal of the American Dental Association 27:1918–1931.Google Scholar
Seilacher, A. 1970. Arbeitskonzept zur Konstruktions-Morphologie. Lethaia 3:393–396.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Seilacher, A. 1973. Fabricational noise in adaptive morphology. Systematic Zoology 22:451–465.Google Scholar
Seilacher, A. 1979. Constructional morphology of sand dollars. Paleobiology 5:191–221.Google Scholar
Sharawy, M., and Bhussry, B. R. 1986. Development and growth of teeth. Pp. 24–44. In Bhaskar, S. N. (ed.), Orban's Oral Histology and Embryology, Tenth Edition. C. V. Mosby Company; St. Louis.Google Scholar
Sikes, S. K. 1971. The Natural History of the African Elephant. Weidenfeld and Nicolson; London.Google Scholar
Simpson, G.G. 1953. The Major Features of Evolution. Columbia University Press; New York.Google Scholar
Sokal, R. G., and Rohlf, F. J. 1981. Biometry. Second Edition. W. H. Freeman and Company; New York.Google Scholar
Stanley, S. M. 1979. Macroevolution: Pattern and Process. W. H. Freeman and Company; New York.Google Scholar
Stock, C. 1935. Exiled elephants of the Channel Islands, California. Scientific Monthly 41:205–214.Google Scholar
Taylor, R. M. S. 1978. Variation in Morphology of Teeth. Charles C. Thomas; Springfield, Illinois.Google Scholar
Thompson, D. 1942. On Growth and Form. Cambridge University Press; Cambridge.Google Scholar
Vrba, E. S. 1987. Ecology in relation to speciation rates: some case histories of Miocene-Recent mammal clades. Evolutionary Ecology 1:283–300.Google Scholar
Wainwright, S. A., Biggs, W. D., Currey, J. D., and Gosline, J. M. 1982. Mechanical Design in Organisms. Princeton University Press; Princeton, New Jersey.Google Scholar
Watson, D. M. S. 1949. The evidence afforded by fossil vertebrates on the nature of evolution. Pp. 45–63. In Jepsen, G. L., Mayr, E., and Simpson, G. G., (eds.), Genetics, Paleontology and Evolution. Princeton University Press; Princeton, New Jersey.Google Scholar