Figures
The oral jaws of Pseudotropheus elongatus.
The jaws of vertebrates, their origins, and their associated dentitions have long been a topic of interest among both paleontologists and evolutionary developmental biologists. The modern diversity of Lake Malawi cichlids has been used here to offer a new perspective on the relationships between teeth on two sets of functional jaws—oral and pharyngeal—and the origins of the vertebrate dentition in the throat of jawless fishes some 500 million years ago (see Fraser et al., e1000031).
Image Credit: Photograph by Ryan F. Bloomquist (Georgia Institute of Technology).
Citation: (2009) PLoS Biology Issue Image | Vol. 7(2) February 2009. PLoS Biol 7(2): ev07.i02. https://doi.org/10.1371/image.pbio.v07.i02
Published: February 24, 2009
Copyright: © 2009 Fraser et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
The jaws of vertebrates, their origins, and their associated dentitions have long been a topic of interest among both paleontologists and evolutionary developmental biologists. The modern diversity of Lake Malawi cichlids has been used here to offer a new perspective on the relationships between teeth on two sets of functional jaws—oral and pharyngeal—and the origins of the vertebrate dentition in the throat of jawless fishes some 500 million years ago (see Fraser et al., e1000031).
Image Credit: Photograph by Ryan F. Bloomquist (Georgia Institute of Technology).