IUCN / SSC Cat Specialist Group - Digital Cat Library |
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| Segura Gago, A.V. | |
| Postnatal cranial ontogeny in neotropical canids and felids: functionality and evolutionary patterns | |
| 2014 Full Book | |
As a general pattern, sutures and synchondroses trend to fuse or acquire more complexity with age, in relation to the increment of areas of origin and insertion of masticatory muscles. The first fused sutures and synchondroses were those corresponding to the occipital plate, and the rostral sutures were the latest to fuse. For Canidae, the degree of suture fusion was linked to diet, whereas for Felidae was more related to size. The neurochranial measurements scaled negatively, whereas those linked to the splachnochranium scaled positively both in felids and canids. In general, young showed rounded, short, and broad skulls, with taller and shorter muzzle, wider palate and basichranium, broad and ventrally placed foramen magnum, larger orbits and bullae, and weak and not laterally expanded zygomatic arches. The mandibles showed elongated and wide mandibular body, backwardly oriented anterior border of the masseteric fossa, little developed and closed mandibular ramus, with its three processes (i.e. coronoid, condyloid and angular processes) shorter. The coronoid process was poorly developed and posteriorly directed. Adults showed the opposite configuration. The definitive (i.e. final) size of skull and mandible were synchronic, which was reached always in the adult stages, whereas the definitive shape in cranial and mandible were asynchronous, occurring both in adult and juvenile stages. Canids and felids occupied different places in the multivariate morpho-space, so both groups showed trajectories completely different and not overlapped in juvenile nor adult stages, which is related to belonging to two different clades. In this way, the factors that shaped the cranial and mandible were linked to function, phylogeny, and a series of combined causes such as diet, prey size, body size and natural history |
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