Nature Communications (May 2020)

Early Jurassic dinosaur fetal dental development and its significance for the evolution of sauropod dentition

  • Robert R. Reisz,
  • Aaron R. H. LeBlanc,
  • Hillary C. Maddin,
  • Thomas W. Dudgeon,
  • Diane Scott,
  • Timothy Huang,
  • Jun Chen,
  • Chuan-Mu Chen,
  • Shiming Zhong

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-16045-7
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 11, no. 1
pp. 1 – 9

Abstract

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Dinosaurs had some of the most complex dentitions known. Here, Reisz et al. characterize dental development across embryonic, hatchling and adult Lufengosaurus, an Early Jurassic sauropodomorph dinosaur, and suggest that derived sauropod dentition evolved by paedomorphosis (juvenilization).