Playing by their own rules: clade-specific trends in mandibular form and function disrupt current paradigms of early tetrapod evolution
Catherine R. C. Strong, A. Gillet, Robert J. Brocklehurst, Stephanie Elaine Pierce
The paper examines morphofunctional trends in vertebrate mandibles across extant and extinct taxa, finding clade-specific patterns that challenge the assumption that mandibles reliably reflect feeding modes in deep-time reconstructions.
bioRxiv · Oct 16, 2026 · PreprintPaleontology