Palaeo After Dark

The gang discusses two papers that look at the evolutionary history of unique teeth. The first paper looks at the history of tusks and tusk-like structures in synapsids, and the second paper looks at the shape of ancient bird teeth. Meanwhile, James gets to the point, Curt is inspired, and Amanda has a drink.   Up-Goer Five (James Edition): The group looks at two papers that talk about teeth in different groups of animals. The first paper is interested in big teeth that keep growing and don't have a hard cover around them. While these teeth without a hard cover that don't stop growing are usually only found in animals with hair, one group that is part of the same family but much older also has teeth that seem to get big and never stop growing. However it turns out that many of them still have the hard covering, and only some of them lose it to be like the animals with hair today that have long teeth without a cover that doesn't stop growing. The other paper is looking at animals that fly and usually don't ha