INVESTIGADORES
PREVOSTI Francisco Juan
artículos
Título:
Evolution of the Carnassial in Living Mammalian Carnivores (Carnivora, Didelphimorphia, Dasyuromorphia): Diet, Phylogeny, and Allometry
Autor/es:
TARQUINI, SERGIO D.; CHEMISQUY, M. A.; FRANCISCO J. PREVOSTI
Revista:
JOURNAL OF MAMMALIAN EVOLUTION
Editorial:
SPRINGER
Referencias:
Lugar: Berlin; Año: 2020 vol. 27 p. 95 - 109
ISSN:
1064-7554
Resumen:
Different living mammals have developed a carnivorous habit (e.g., Carnivora, Dasyuridae, Thylacinidae, some Didelphidae). Theyexhibit different specializations for carnivory; however, they share some characters such as a carnassial molar. Previous studies havecorrelated the shape of molars with diet using morphometric indices or surface scans. In this work, we used 3D geometric morphometrics to explore the shape of the lower carnassials of 235 specimens corresponding to 71 extant species of Carnivora and six extantspecies of Marsupialia, both Didelphimorphia and Dasyuromorphia. We statistically estimated the effect of size, diet, and phylogeny onmolar shape. All the analyses indicated a higher correlation between diet and molar shape, and a better correlation between molar shapeand the position of each species on the phylogeny. Therefore, if we take into account the phylogenetic pattern, we can use molarmorphology to infer diet of fossil species. Finally, this work evaluates for the first time, in a quantitative way, which of the lower molarsof the Metatheria (m3 or m4) is the best analogue to the m1 of Carnivora; our results indicated the m4 is the best analogue