The Cambridge natural history, Vol. 10 (of 10)Beddard, Frank E. (Frank Evers)
Science
The Cambridge natural history, Vol. 10 (of 10)
Beddard, Frank E. (Frank Evers)
Animals; Mammals
Embryological evidence has also been called in, and with some success, to
contribute towards the proof of the tritubercular theory of teeth. Taeker
has shown that in the Horse and the Pig, and some other Ungulates, there is
first of all a single hillock or cusp, and that later the additional cones
arise separately. An apparent stumbling-block raised by these
investigations is that it is not always the protocone or its equivalent in
the upper jaw which arises first, as it obviously ought to do
phylogenetically. This, however, is not a final argument in either
direction. We know from plenty of examples that ontogenetic processes
sometimes do not correspond in their order with phylogenetic changes. Thus
in the mammalian heart the ventricle divides before the auricle; and of
coarse, phylogenetically, the reverse ought to occur, since a divided
auricle precedes a divided ventricle. This method of development has,
moreover, been interpreted otherwise. It has been held to signify that the
complex teeth of mammals are indeed derived from simple cones but by the
fusion of a number of those cones.
On the other hand there are the claims of the multitubercular theory of the
origin of mammalian teeth to be considered. The palaeontological evidence
has been already, to some extent, utilised. The occurrence of such teeth
among the possible forerunners of mammals, and in some of the most
primitive types of Mammalia, has been referred to. Senor Ameghino dwells
upon the sextubercular condition of many primitive mammals even belonging
to the Eutheria. In a recent communication[32] he attempts to identify six
tubercles in the molars of types belonging to a {60} variety of Orders. The
same condition, as has been noted, characterises that ancient Ungulate form
_Euprotogonia_. Even where the teeth seem at first sight to be
tritubercular a detailed study shows traces of otherwise vanished cusps.
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