Teeth are often assumed to be optimal for their function, which allows researchers to derive dietary signatures from tooth shape. Most tooth shape analyses normalize for tooth size, potentially masking the relationship between relative food item size and tooth shape. Here, we model how relative food item size may affect optimal tooth cusp radius of curvature (RoC) during the fracture of brittle...

OBJECTIVES To compare tooth size between subjects with mild, moderate and severe hypodontia and a control group. MATERIAL AND METHODS The study comprised 120 patients with hypodontia divided into three groups of 40 mild (≤2 teeth congenitally missing), 40 moderate (3-5 teeth congenitally missing) and 40 severe (≥6 teeth congenitally missing) hypodontia; and 40 age and sex matched controls. To...

Tooth size varies exponentially with body weight in primates. Logarithmic transformation of tooth crown area and body weight yields a linear model of slope 0.67 as an isometric (geometric) baseline for study of dental allometry. This model is compared with that predicted by metabolic scaling (slope = 0.75). Tarsius and other insectivores have larger teeth for their body size than generalized pr...

Analysis of variation in tooth size in a population of red fox, Vulpes vulpes (Linnaeus, 1758) from Poland based on three indices (coefficient of variation CV, variation index VSD, residual standard deviation RSD) and its correlation with average tooth size revealed two contradictory patterns. The CV and VSD were significantly correlated with average tooth sizes, while RSD values was independen...