Abstract
Subterranean rodents spend most of their lives underground. As such they have developed efficient ways of excavating soil for burrow formation. Most subterranean rodents dig in one of two ways; chisel‐tooth digging, where enamel covered incisors dig through soil; or scratch digging, where keratin covered claws are used. It is thought that chisel‐tooth digging evolved in order to utilize the resilient enamel covered incisor to dig through harder soils compared to keratin filled claws, which can only dig through softer soils. Chisel‐tooth digging requires a high bite force in concert with a wide gape to achieve optimal removal of soil. A previous study compared the performance of the cranium between chisel‐tooth and scratch digging rodents at different gapes which showed the chisel‐tooth digging rodent cranium maintained higher bite forces at wider gapes. The current study compared the performance of chisel‐tooth and scratch digging mandibles using finite element analysis (FEA). To test this hypothesis, finite element models of the mandible were created and solved at varying gapes. Our results show that at small gapes, the chisel‐tooth and scratch digging mandibles show similar performance parameters. However, as gapes increase the chisel‐tooth digging mandibles outperform the scratch digging mandible. Subterranean rodents have a hard food diet and so it is no surprise that there was little difference in performance at small gapes. However, only chisel‐tooth diggers require a larger gape to excavate hard soils. The results of this study show that the mandibular morphology of chisel‐tooth digging rodents has adapted to meet its functional demands.Support or Funding InformationGill Dilliard Faculty Enrichment Fund ABAC FoundationNatural Environment Research Council, Grant/Award Number: G001952This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2019 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.
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