Temnospondyl amphibians were important members of the tetrapod fauna and the terrestrial vertebrate food chain during the Paleozoic and early Mesozoic. The “labyrinthodont” teeth of these amphibians are not simple cones; they exhibit an overall tooth form that is relatively complex and generally conserved over large temporal and phylogenetic ranges. We assess the functional morphology of these ...

Ectodermal contribution to the induction of pharyngeal teeth that form in the endodermal territory of the oropharyngeal cavity in some teleost fishes has been a matter of considerable debate. To determine the role of ectodermal cell signaling in scale and tooth formation and thereby to gain insights in evolutionary origin of teeth, we analyzed scales and teeth in rs-3 medaka mutants characteriz...

The interaction between the two main competing geometric determinants of teeth (the geometry of function and the geometry of occlusion) were investigated through the construction of three-dimensional spatial models of several mammalian tooth forms (carnassial, insectivore premolar, zalambdodont, dilambdodont, and tribosphenic). These models aim to emulate the shape and function of mammalian tee...

Taurodontism is an aberration of teeth that lacks the constriction at the level of the CEJ characterized by elongated pulp chambers and apical displacement of bifurcation or trifurcation of the roots, giving it a rectangular shape. Its occurrence in permanent teeth is common and is quite rare in deciduous dentition. Presented in this article are two cases with taurodontism involving deciduous a...

BACKGROUND The aim of the study is to investigate the prevalence of talon cusps in a sample of Jordanians dental patients and their distribution among different types of teeth. METHODS The data were collected from radiographic examination of 3,024 periapical films showing 9,377 teeth from a random sample of 1,660 patients. A tooth was considered having talon cusp if there was a V-shape radiop...

Professor Yrjo Paatero, in 1961, first introduced the Orthopantomography (OPG) [1]. It has been extensively used in dentistry for analysing the number and type of teeth present, caries, impacted teeth, root resorption, ankylosis, shape of the condyles [2], temporomandibular joints, sinuses, fractures, cysts, tumours and alveolar bone level [3,4]. Panoramic radiography is advised to all patients...

Dental anomaly in number, size and shape might be due to excessive activation of dental lamina during the morpho-differentiation stage. Fusion is one of the most unusual and rare anomalies of shape of the teeth. It frequently involves the supernumerary teeth resulting in a challenging differential diagnosis with gemination. Dental anomalies may result in different problems such as delayed erupt...

Sphagesaurus montealtensis is a sphagesaurid whose original description was based on a comparison with Sphagesaurus huenei, the only species of the clade described to that date. Better preparation of the holotype and the discovery of a new specimen have allowed the review of some characteristics and the identification of several synapomorphies of S. montealtensis with the genus Caipirasuchus: p...