Vertebrate dentalites

Dentalites encompass all traces produced on a substrate by the teeth or oral cavity of a vertebrate or invertebrate. Actualistic studies started with William Buckland in 1822. There is an extensive fossil record of vertebrate dentalites, principally on bony substrates but also on invertebrate hard parts, coprolites, plants, lithic substrates, and others. There is a bias toward dentalites of large animals preserved on large pieces of substrate. The Taxophile Effect refers to the disproportionate study of more “popular” taxonomic groups, well seen in the marked disparity between the numbers of reports of dentalites on dinosaur bones relative to those on the bones of Cenozoic mammals. Dentalites are nonrandomly distributed in time, with notable acmes in the Late Triassic, Late Cretaceous, and late Cenozoic. Prior to the Quaternary, with the exception of the nonmarine Mesozoic, most dentalites are reported from marine facies. In the Quaternary, a large percentage of dentalites are from cave deposits. There is a clear seeker bias (seek and ye shall find), as careful investigation of large, existing collections, at least of vertebrate specimens, has always led to the identification of multiple examples of dentalites. Physichnium (Piscichnus) waitemata igen. nov. is a widespread trace from the Late Cretaceous-Recent produced by the hydraulical excavation for food by batoids. Dentalite ichnogenera of the ichnofamily Machichnidae, produced by a variety of fish and tetrapods, are Machichnus Mikuláš et al., 2006, Knethichnus Jacobsen and Bromley, 2009, Linichnus Jacobsen and Bromley, 2009, Mandaodonites Cruickshank (1986), Nihilichnus Mikuláš et al., 2006, Heterodontichnites Rinehart et al., 2006, Mikulasichnus igen. nov., and Selachiodentichnus godfreyi igen. et isp. nov. Traces produced by mouth parts impacting the sediment surface are Daandavichnus batoideum Rodríguez-de la Rosa in Rodríguez-de la Rosa et al. (2021) and ichnospecies of Osculichnus Demircan and Uchman 2010—O. labialis Demircan and Uchman 2010, O. tarnowskae Szrek et al. (2016), O. tepitsin Rodríguez-de la Rosa et al. (2021), and O. fani isp. nov.