Variations of the tooth morphology of the Woolly Mammoth Mammuthus primigenius (Blumenbach, 1799) (Mammalia: Elephanthidae)

Abstract

Cases of variations in the morphology of isolated upper teeth M3 of Mammuthus primigenius (Blumenbach, 1799) from the south-east of West Siberia and Yakutiya are described. The anomaly of M. primigenius tooth from Yakutiya is expressed in changing of the tooth crown shape and position of dental plates in M3. Development of the anomaly was probably associated with a delay of loosing the tooth of the previous generation (M2) and disorder of the formation of M3 at the stage of its mineralization. Two M3 teeth from Novosibirsk Province are characterized by changing of the wearing surface and root shape. One of them shows two wearing surfaces in parallel to initial masticatory surface, shifted lingually. The upper part of the root is bent buccally, that is connected with the falling out of the tooth from the alveolus. The appearance of such a change, presumably, is connected with a mechanical injury of the cheek region of skull. The reconstruction of the formation of this tooth anomaly in M. primigenius was carried out. The second of these teeth also has a wrong position of the masticatory surface, which has a gradual curvature from nearly perpendicular (to enamel plates) in the anterior part of the tooth to about 45° in the posterior plates.