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An Enigmatic Hypoplastic Defect of the Maxillary Lateral Incisor in Recent and Fossil Orangutans from Sumatra (Pongo abelii) and Borneo (Pongo pygmaeus)

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Abstract

Developmental dental pathologies provide insight into health of primates during ontogeny, and are particularly useful for elucidating the environment in which extant and extinct primates matured. Our aim is to evaluate whether the prevalence of an unusual dental defect on the mesiolabial enamel of the upper lateral incisor, thought to reflect dental crowding during maturation, is lesser in female orangutans, with their smaller teeth, than in males; and in Sumatran orangutans, from more optimal developmental habitats, than in those from Borneo. Our sample includes 49 Pongo pygmaeus (87 teeth), 21 P. abelii (38 teeth), Late Pleistocene paleo-orangutans from Sumatra and Vietnam (67 teeth), Late Miocene catarrhines Lufengpithecus lufengensis (2 teeth), and Anapithecus hernyaki (7 teeth). Methods include micro-CT scans, radiography, and dental metrics of anterior teeth. We observed fenestration between incisor crypts and marked crowding of unerupted crowns, which could allow tooth-to-tooth contact. Tooth size does not differ significantly in animals with or without the defect, implicating undergrowth of the jaw as the proximate cause of dental crowding and defect presence. Male orangutans from both islands show more defects than do females. The defect is significantly more common in Bornean orangutans (71 %) compared to Sumatran (29 %). Prevalence among fossil forms falls between these extremes, except that all five individual Anapithecus show one or both incisors with the defect. We conclude that maxillary lateral incisor defect is a common developmental pathology of apes that is minimized in optimal habitats and that such evidence can be used to infer habitat quality in extant and fossil apes.

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Acknowledgments

M. F. Skinner acknowledges helpful discussions or assistance from Heather Edgar, David Hopwood, Paul Klassen, Laszlo Kordos, Meg Stark, Vu The Long, and Ji Xueping. D. L. Hannibal would like to thank Linda Gordon and Richard Thorington, Department of Mammals, Smithsonian National Museum and Natural History for access to specimens, catalog records, field notes, and facilities and the University of Oregon Graduate Student Research Award program for financial support. For access to specimens for CT scanning we thank Thomas Koppe and the Greifswald Anatomy Museum, Germany. This research was supported by the Max Planck Society, National Science Foundation (SBR-9815546), the Wenner–Gren Foundation, and the Leakey Foundation. Lastly, we are grateful to the editor and two anonymous reviewers for their patience and excellent advice.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Archaeology, University of York, York, YO1 7EP, UK

    Mark F. Skinner

  2. School of Anthropology and Conservation, University of Kent, Canterbury, CT2 7NR, UK

    Matthew M. Skinner

  3. Department of Human Evolution, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, 04103, Leipzig, Germany

    Matthew M. Skinner

  4. Department of Anatomy and Neuroscience, University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC, 3010, Australia

    Varsha C. Pilbrow

  5. Department of Population Health and Reproduction, University of California, Davis, CA, 95616, USA

    Darcy L. Hannibal

  6. Brain, Mind and Behavior Unit, California National Primate Research Center, University of California, Davis, CA, 95616, USA

    Darcy L. Hannibal

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  1. Mark F. Skinner
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Skinner, M.F., Skinner, M.M., Pilbrow, V.C. et al. An Enigmatic Hypoplastic Defect of the Maxillary Lateral Incisor in Recent and Fossil Orangutans from Sumatra (Pongo abelii) and Borneo (Pongo pygmaeus). Int J Primatol 37, 548–567 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10764-016-9920-2

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