Natural History Wanderings

A new study reveals how some mammals evolved nature’s most impressive chompers (which are not always used for chomping).

So why, across the broad sweep of geologic history, do such useful teeth only appear among mammals and no other surviving groups of animals? According to a… in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, it takes two key adaptations to teeth to make a tusk — and the evolutionary pathway first appeared millions of years before the first true mammals.

Read article at How Did Elephants and Walruses Get Their Tusks? It’s a Long Story. – The New York Times