Abstract
The squaliform sharks represent one of the most speciose shark clades. Many adult squaliforms have blade-like teeth, either on both jaws or restricted to the lower jaw, forming a continuous, serrated blade along the jaw margin. These teeth are replaced as a single unit and successor teeth lack the alternate arrangement present in other elasmobranchs. Micro-CT scans of embryos of squaliforms and a related outgroup (Pristiophoridae) revealed that the squaliform dentition pattern represents a highly modified version of tooth replacement seen in other clades. Teeth of Squalus embryos are arranged in an alternate pattern, with successive tooth rows containing additional teeth added proximally. Asynchronous timing of tooth production along the jaw and tooth loss prior to birth cause teeth to align in oblique sets containing teeth from subsequent rows; these become parallel to the jaw margin during ontogeny, so that adult Squalus has functional tooth rows comprising obliquely stacked teeth of consecutive developmental rows. In more strongly heterodont squaliforms, initial embryonic lower teeth develop into the oblique functional sets seen in adult Squalus, with no requirement to form, and subsequently lose, teeth arranged in an initial alternate pattern.
Highlights
The squaliform sharks form a monophyletic clade containing a quarter of all shark species
The dentition for each clade of gnathostomes, including Chondrichthyes, is unique, and we examine how a common developmental model [8] is expressed within neoselachians, and squaliforms
Timing of tooth shedding, or retention may be variable ([8,12]; figure 3). These concepts predict that certain shark dentition morphologies can be interpreted as derived from a sequential addition model (SAM) [8,10], where development of integrated tooth addition was based on a clonal set (teeth generated as two adjacent files with alternate timing and arrangement as a sequential addition tooth (SAT) module; figure 3)
Summary
The squaliform sharks form a monophyletic clade containing a quarter of all shark species. These concepts predict that certain shark dentition morphologies can be interpreted as derived from a sequential addition model (SAM) [8,10], where development of integrated tooth addition was based on a clonal set (teeth generated as two adjacent files with alternate timing and arrangement as a sequential addition tooth (SAT) module; figure 3) This was envisaged as a developmental segment of the dentition iteratively repeated in a proximal direction along the jaw, so that alternate replacement of teeth was controlled by the initiation pattern for each pair of tooth files [8].
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