Procyon lotor UWBM

Brannick, Alexandria L., Fulghum, Henry Z., Grossnickle, David M. & Wilson Mantilla, Gregory P., 2023, Dental ecomorphology and macroevolutionary patterns of North American Late Cretaceous metatherians, Palaeontologia Electronica (a 48) 26 (3), pp. 1-42 : 18-20

Procyon lotor UWBM 32812 ado 0.450

0.049 0.060 - 0.642 0.240

0.006 0.009 - 0.727 0.256

- - - 0.455* 0.545

0.098 0.428* - 0.003 0.001

0.096 0.463 - 0.001 -

0.059 0.254 0.011 0.001 0.001

0.344 0.251* 0.008 0.156 0.194

0.576 0.298 0.015 - -

0.216 0.321 0.020 - -

0.182 0.305 0.001 - -

0.174 0.138 0.514 - 0.001

0.671 0.147 0.148 - 0.002

0.010 0.002 0.985 - 0.002

0.266 0.199 0.140 0.056 0.265*

0.469 0.293 0.051 0.027 0.079

0.169 0.382* 0.004 0.001 0.001

0.320* 0.346 0.014 - -

0.427* 0.434 0.001 0.006 0.003

0.386* 0.420 0.007 0.014 0.014

0.444 0.390* 0.007 0.002 0.002

0.076 0.096 0.444 - -

- - - 0.723 0.276

- - - 0.827 0.173

- - - 0.730 0.269

- - 1.000 - -

0.152 0.294 0.013 - -

0.210 0.439 0.001 0.001 0.001

0.335 0.279* 0.014 - -

0.149 0.078 0.002 0.384 0.380*

0.363 0.243 0.179 - -

0.127 0.195 0.216 - -

0.008 0.018 - 0.682 0.287

0.017 0.176 0.007 0.017 0.014

0.484 0.366 0.009 0.001 0.002

0.081 0.030 0.317 0.033 0.532

0.258 0.390 0.017 0.002 0.003

0.497 0.315 0.050 0.001 0.004

0.295 0.417 0.014 0.025 0.031

0.071 0.097 0.041 0.189 0.554

0.125 0.398* 0.005 0.013 0.009

upper and lower molars, it is likely due to the idiosyncrasies of our carnivore sample. Two of the six carnivore taxa ( Crocuta crocuta , the spotted hyena and Sarcophilus harrisii , the Tasmanian devil) are known for their bone-cracking/durophagous habits (e.g., Werdelin, 1989; Wroe et al., 2005), and another taxon ( Eira barbara , the tayra) supplements its carnivorous diet with fruit and honey (Bisbal, 1986). Increasing the sampling of hypercarnivorous taxa may add clarity to DTA patterns for carnivores and subsequent DFA carnivore classifications. Additionally, the DNE and OPCR values of our frugivore sample differ from those of previous studies: they are slightly higher and more variable (Bunn et al., 2011; Winchester et al., 2014). This discrepancy also likely reflects differences in taxon sampling. Whereas previous studies heavily sample primate frugivores, our sample includes one primate and four other taxa from Chiroptera , Carnivora , and Cetartiodactyla. Most of these other taxa incorporate small amounts of foods besides fruit into their diet (e.g., Pecari tajacu , the collared peccary, incorporates roots, insects, and small vertebrates in addition to fruit [ Nowak, 1999; Desbiez et al., 2009]). The higher DNE and OPCR values in our frugivore sample may reflect dental adaptations, such as rugosities, for processing these other food materials ( Santana et al., 2011; Smith, 2017), or other specialized features for processing poorly documented fallback foods (food consumed less often but are critical for survival during times of environmental stress)—an example of Liem’s paradox (e.g., Ungar, 2010).

The DFA correctly classified extant invertivores and soft-invertebrate specialists at the highest rate among the diet categories ( Table 8). The few misclassified invertivore specimens were classified as soft-invertebrate specialists and vice versa. The DFA did not predict animal-dominated omnivores as reliably; some specimens were misclassified as frugivores, plant-dominated omnivores, and one as an invertivore. Among the frugivore sample, two specimens were misclassified as plant-dominated omnivores, one as a carnivore, and one as an animal-dominated omnivore. Among the plant-dominated omnivore sample, one specimen was misclassified as an animal-dominated omnivore and one as a frugivore. Often the assigned diet had the second highest posterior probability. These misclassifications likely stem in part from the overlapping range of DTA values among these dietary categories ( Figures 2–3 ), which perhaps reflects some combination of dental morphological convergence among some animals in our extant sample, the incomplete and variable quality of the dietary data available, and the imperfect nature of the diet categorizations.

There were nine instances in which multiple specimens of the same extant species were classified into different dietary categories by the DFA and

Species Specimen pred. diet frug pdo ado carn inv sis

Figures

FIGURE 2. Boxplots of Dirichlet normal energy (DNE), relief index (RFI), and orientation patch count rotated (OPCR) across extant mammals classified by diet and a subset of fossil groups. Abbreviations for diet categories: ado = animal-dominated omnivore; carn = carnivore; frug = frugivore; inv = invertivore; pdo = plant-dominated omnivore; sis = soft-invertebrate specialist. Abbreviations for fossil groups: Alph. = Alphadontidae; Herpet. = Herpetotheriidae; Ped. = Pediomyidae.

FIGURE 3. Bivariate scatter plots of log-transformed Dirichlet normal energy (lnDNE), relief index (lnRFI), and orientation patch count rotated (lnOPCR) values, and a 3D scatterplot of all three DTA metrics (bottom right) for our extant comparative sample. Shapes correspond to our assigned diet categorizations. See Table 2 for taxonomic names. Abbreviations for diet categories: ado = animal-dominated omnivore; carn = carnivore; frug = frugivore; inv = invertivore; pdo = plant-dominated omnivore; sis = soft-invertebrate specialist.