An Analysis of North American Taeniolabidoid Multituberculate (Mammalia, Allotheria) Dentitions Using Mammalian Dietary Proxies
Date
2018-12-20
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Abstract
In this thesis, a set of dietary proxies – dental microwear analysis, cusp row ratios (CRR) (similar to shearing ratios), relief index (RFI), orientation patch count rotated (OPCR), and Dirichlet normal energy (DNE) – was used to infer diets of North American taeniolabidoid multituberculates. Based on the signals recovered by these proxies, taeniolabidoid diets did not vary consistently with body size: small-bodied and large-bodied taeniolabidoids had similar dietary signals for almost all proxies, the only difference being in microwear feature dimensions. Dental microwear signals suggest that taeniolabidoids and non-taeniolabidoid cimolodontans may have had different diets, but all other proxies have recovered equivalent signals between the two groups. Dietary classifications are inconsistent among CRR, RFI, OPCR, and DNE. This suggests that these proxies are not equally good predictors and that their generalizability to non-therian mammals may need to be re-evaluated.
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Keywords
Dietary proxies, Multituberculata, Mammalia, Microwear, Shearing ratios, Dental topographic analysis, Taeniolabidoidea
Citation
Robson, S. V. (2018). An Analysis of North American Taeniolabidoid Multituberculate (Mammalia, Allotheria) Dentitions Using Mammalian Dietary Proxies (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.