Rodent Evolution

[Tales]

But I dunno if this place is the best place to ask such a crazy question.

Ok, in my story which is in progress. I am designing some predatory rodents which I need some scientific fact to support this design of the teeth. As you can see the Rodent skull hasn't changed much for millions of years in fact they all look very similar.

What kinda teeth will be needed or teeth shape would be best for a rodent's incisors to form so it can stab flesh.

I have a few designs but I calculated that the creature might have what they call a teeth occulsion or overgrown teeth if I use my current designs.

I would also wanna ask whether is it possible for a molar to turn into another teeth shape? Rodents only got molars and incisors. so I do not want to change the number of teeth but only the overall shape

So far I stumbled upon Nixon's Future Evolution book about animals that will exist after Man's extinction. Inside there were rodents that evolved into meat eating predators, but I do not like the shape of the rat's teeth in. It could cause dental occlusion or something.

I think this type of teeth might end up like this....

Gopher with overgrown teeth

Can anyone help me?

Edited April 27, 2009 by Tales

[Super Existence]

Perhaps you should read James Herberts Rats trilogy. In that a crazed scientist cross breeds the common black rat with mutants contaminated by radiation. The creatures then start terrorising Lodon and eating the inhabitants.

Quite good books. That rats in his story are the size of a small dog and are totally carnivorous. There teeth are like normal rats but their front incisors are razor sharp overgrown and act like scissors when they attack. They also attack on mass swarming their victims.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rats_(novel)

[*Jess♥]

yes rats are a good example.

the first thing i thought of was george orwells "1984".

here is a link to an excerpt http://www.liferesearchuniversal.com/1984-23.html

[Bobby]

Would Lawyers be on that list too???

[Tales]

You mean the list of the rat's menu?

Yes.....

But now I need to know what shape of the incisors would be best at these

1.self sharpen

2. able to cut flesh

3. able to stab

[*Jess♥]

1.self sharpen

2. able to cut flesh

3. able to stab

best for self sharpen would be more like a beavers teeth i expect.

because they gnaw wood and their teeth are designed to self sharpen for that purpose.

able to cut flesh, i would imagine to be redundant since as i said, beavers can gnaw through trees.

but anyhow if you want teeth specially adapted to slice through flesh, you could perhaps look at things like pirhana or shark.

stabbing teeth, you would want to most likely look at sabre tooth tiger maybe? teeth for stabbing though... not very efficient way of killing. you would need a wide gape of mouth in order to use that effectively, any animal that uses a stab motion, is usually using teh pressure of the bite to throttle the prey or to hang on until the animal tires.

I cannot think of any predator that kills be stabbing. nnot with teeth anyway.. ther eis teh stinger of some animals. also a snake with it's venoim. oh i forgot that ,yes thats the only stabbing i can think of.

[Bobby]

I mean for Carnivorous Rodents. :lol:

[Tales]

I see...

But I think now the problem is to see what shape for carnivorous rodents incisor should be shaped so that it can sharpen by himself and not become overgrown as long as he has "bones" to gnaw.

[Bobby]

I was making a joke. Kind of like how lawyers are often called vampiric or leech like because they bleed you dry.

[*zeo]

MONSTER CARNIVOROUS MICE OVERRUN BRITISH-OWNED GOUGH ISLAND

Btw, rodent's two continuously growing front incisors, in the upper and lower jaws which must be kept short by gnawing, grow continuously throughout their life. . . They make up about 40% of all mammals. . .

Basically these teeth let them chew through just about anything, so they can eat things most other animals couldn't even chew. So it is pretty doubtful they would evolve different teeth as the ones they have are multi-purpose as they come, besides they wouldn't be classed as rodents anymore if you did change their teeth!

[Tales]

You got a point Zeo

But then if the rat is to grow to a large size won't those teeth need modifications? In my story my rats are slightly bigger than those on GOUGH ISLAND.

I think when I have the time I will post on the teeth designs I have so far...

[*zeo]

Teeth tend to be consistent in design as determine by how and what is eaten, regardless of scale. . . Like look at a T-Rex's teeth and compare it to much smaller meat eating dinosaurs? Or the modern day Shark and compare the small sharks to the big sharks? Essentially same design, just different scale, with some slight modifications like whether the teeth are serrated or smooth, etc. . .

Though you can probably get away with changing the other teeth and just leave the main front teeth alone. . . though IMO it would be more likely that a large predatory rodent based creature would most likely develop traits like the Komodo Dragon toxic saliva, etc.

You can also check the movie "Graveyard Shift". . . a pretty good monster Rodent movie

[Tales]

how's this?

[*Jess♥]

that's like one of those fish i was thinking of.

isn't it like a wolf fish?

any case, I recognise those teeth, but i don't think that is actually a fish, just looks similar.

[Super Existence]

Graveyard shift is about a giant mutant bat, not sure if the book was the same as for the rats in that movie they were just normal friendly rats they weren't maneater or anything. God that movies sucked in a cool B movie kind of way.

[*zeo]

Not a giant bat, if you look at its teeth it was more some mutant creature with both rat and bat characteristics. Not to mention the rat like tail it had!

[Tales]

that one is a vampire bat's front incisors..... it seems the incisor is a very adaptable teeth in mammals.

Ok here some examples of incisors being used for other things and having odd shapes

But I don't understand how this fella eat without upper incisors.

[Super Existence]

Yeah that's true, never noticed that.

[Tales]

Hey guys does anyone have the picture of the skull of Grasshopper Mouse?

I heard that little critter eats other mice and even centipedes and scorpions!

[*Jess♥]

[Tales]

that's the skull?

Nice find.... but do you have it in 3/4 view too?

[*Jess♥]

there aren't many pictures of this.

try putting it's name into google - Onychomys

[Tales]

hmmm it's not so different from other rodents as so to speak....

They might work at mouse-size but then if they want to grow to the size of a tiger or lion I think the dimensions will be different.

I will illustrate this soon.

Edited April 5, 2009 by Tales

[*Jess♥]

compare small creature types to large creature types. for example, small primate versus large primate.

compare wallaby to kangaroo.

compare domestic cat to lion.

tales, if you want structural artist, tell me what creature ideas you want, I can draw anatomical sketch for you.

[Tales]

You draw too?

I will come with something and you see whether it's okay