Rare osteohistological evidence of skeletal maturity in the early diverging traversodontid Scalenodon angustifrons, with comments on histological sampling coverage in Cynodontia

Abstract

ABSTRACT To date, 25 species of non-mammalian cynodonts have been histologically sampled, but few record a definitive and well-developed external fundamental system (EFS) indicative of skeletal maturity. Here, I report an EFS in the femoral histology of Scalenodon angustifrons and discuss the factors that could explain why skeletally mature tissue is rarely documented in cynodont osteohistology. My sample includes two equivalently sized individuals that document marked histological variation, as only one shows evidence of slowing growth rate and an EFS. Variation in the bone histology between femora of the same size suggests that attainment of skeletal maturity does not follow a discrete developmental pattern for S. angustifrons, a pattern that is also seen in the bone histology of other traversodontids and some non-gomphodontian cynodonts. From these results, a flexible growth strategy is inferred for S. angustifrons. To contextualize the validity of this pattern among other cynodont species, I summarize the sampling coverage of cynodonts that have been thin-sectioned and report limited coverage across size classes/ inferred development stages. This is often a result of sampling one isolated element that is not standardized to one skeletal element, which contributes to a poorly constrained comparative sample (in terms of size coverage, spatial and temporal resolution, and taxonomic coverage). Despite this, many cynodont species show shifts towards slow growth, but very few instances of unequivocal evidence of skeletal maturity. This result underscores the need for standardized iterative histological sampling to assess longevity, life history, and developmental patterns of non-mammalian cynodonts more accurately.