Extinct Animals

To understand what extinct animals such as dinosaurs ate, we can compare their tooth types to the range of tooth types that we see with modern animals, such as carnivorous and herbivorous animals. So when we look at a tiger skull, we can look at aspects of its dentition or its teeth to understand what it ate. So when we see pointed and sharp teeth, we can see that they are very well adapted for slicing, shearing and cutting flesh. Unlike the tiger, when we look at a herbivorous animal, a horse, we can see that its teeth are arranged in a nice flat grinding surface, and so when the top and lower teeth fit together, they actually grind up plant material. When we look at fossils like this one, which belongs to an allosaur, we can see teeth that are conical and recurve backwards with sharp points and serrated edges. These kinds of clues tell us that this animal was a meat-eating animal. Now, we'll look at the jaw of a hydrosol. On one side, you can see many of its teeth. When we turn it around, you can see a long flat grinding surface. By comparison, we can infer that this animal was also a plant eater, just like the horse that showed us a very similar kind of dentition. This animal also ate plants and other tough, fibrous material.