TY - JOUR
T1 - The prevalence of vestigeal teeth in two beaked whale species from the North Atlantic.
T2 - Vestigial teeth in beaked whales.
AU - Kitchener, Andrew
AU - Herman, Jeremy S
AU - Doeschate, Mariel ten
AU - Davison, Nicholas J
AU - Brownlow, Andrew
AU - Schwarz, Tobias
AU - Kinze, Carl Chr.
AU - Hantke, Georg
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank the SeaWorld and Busch Gardens Conservation Fund for their generous support of the collecting of killer whales and beaked whales by National Museums Scotland. We thank Wojtek Bachara for providing information about M. bidens strandings. We thank the following curators for providing information about specimens in their collections: Carola Azurduy Högström, Göteborgs Naturhistorika Museum, Anne Karin Hufthammer, Universitetsmuseet i Bergen, Daniella Kalthoff, Naturhistoriska riksmuseet, Stockholm, Christine Lefèvre and Géraldine Veron, Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, Paris, Roberto Portela Miguez and Richard Sabin, Natural History Museum, London, Pablo Teta, Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales, Buenos Aires. We also thank Vladimir Blagoderov for the photographs of the teeth.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston 2023.
PY - 2023/2/6
Y1 - 2023/2/6
N2 - Beaked whales, Family Ziphiidae, occur in deep offshore and oceanic seas, where they are very difficult to study, so that much of our knowledge about them is derived from stranded animals. Most beaked whales (e.g., genera Mesoplodon and Ziphius) have only one pair of mandibular teeth. A reduced dentition is widely regarded as an adaptation to suction feeding, primarily on squid. However, vestigial maxillary and mandibular teeth have been recorded in some species. Here, we describe new records of vestigial teeth in 12 Sowerby's beaked whales, Mesoplodon bidens, and one Cuvier's beaked whale, Ziphius cavirostris, from a total 14 animals of these species, which stranded in 2019-2021 in Scotland. In nine M. bidens some tooth crowns were erupted and mild occlusal wear was visible, whereas pathological teeth were seen in ten individuals. The occurrence of vestigial teeth in Sowerby's beaked whale appears to be significantly under-recorded, suggesting that vestigial teeth form as part of the normal development of the dentition. The reasons for the under-recording of the occurrence and the possible functionality of vestigial teeth in ziphiids are discussed.
AB - Beaked whales, Family Ziphiidae, occur in deep offshore and oceanic seas, where they are very difficult to study, so that much of our knowledge about them is derived from stranded animals. Most beaked whales (e.g., genera Mesoplodon and Ziphius) have only one pair of mandibular teeth. A reduced dentition is widely regarded as an adaptation to suction feeding, primarily on squid. However, vestigial maxillary and mandibular teeth have been recorded in some species. Here, we describe new records of vestigial teeth in 12 Sowerby's beaked whales, Mesoplodon bidens, and one Cuvier's beaked whale, Ziphius cavirostris, from a total 14 animals of these species, which stranded in 2019-2021 in Scotland. In nine M. bidens some tooth crowns were erupted and mild occlusal wear was visible, whereas pathological teeth were seen in ten individuals. The occurrence of vestigial teeth in Sowerby's beaked whale appears to be significantly under-recorded, suggesting that vestigial teeth form as part of the normal development of the dentition. The reasons for the under-recording of the occurrence and the possible functionality of vestigial teeth in ziphiids are discussed.
KW - Mesoplodon
KW - Ziphius
KW - vestigial teeth
KW - pathology
U2 - 10.1515/mammalia-2022-0099
DO - 10.1515/mammalia-2022-0099
M3 - Article
SN - 0025-1461
VL - 87
SP - 190
EP - 200
JO - Mammalia
JF - Mammalia
IS - 2
ER -