[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index][Subject Index][Author Index]
Hadrosaur teeth
As I understand the chewing apparatus of Hadrosaurs, the maxillary bone
was capable of flexing outward slightly, allowing the surface of the
maxillary teeth to move across the surface of the dentary teeth as the
biting force was applied by the jaw muscles. This presumably provided a
mechanism for grinding food in an animal that had no side-to-side motion
of its lower jaw. And since the occlusal surfaces usually met at a
downward and outward angle of 40 to 60 degrees from the horizontal, I
presume the thinking is that such grinding moves the food downward and
outward into the buccal area. Thus the need for cheeks or some form of
rhamphothecal covering to keep the food in the mouth.
Is this a generally accurate description of current thinking? It seems
reasonable, but has anyone actually modeled the specialized teeth and
maxilla in Hadrosaurs to see how they affected food movement in the
mouth?