Page 191 - The Dinosaur Book and Other Wonders of the Prehistoric World (DK-Smithsonian)

The tusks were
probably used for
display and gathering
food, like the tusks of
modern elephants.
Woolly Mammoth

Cheek tooth

Huge, flattened
cheek teeth mashed
the mammoth’s fibrous
plant food into a pulp.

WIDE GAPE

Coelodonta
Saber-toothed cats had to open their mouths incredibly
wide to attack large prey. A modern lion’s lower jaw
can rotate by 70˚, but Smilodon could manage 120˚.
This helped it use its saber teeth like daggers to bite
into its victim’s throats.

The cheek teeth acted
like scissor blades to
slice through flesh. 70˚
120˚
Smilodon Lion

The cheek teeth of a woolly rhinoceros
were like the teeth of horses, with high
crowns for chewing plants.

meat-slicing cheek teeth, and no chewing had a pair of very long lower incisors that grew
teeth at all. The plant-eating woolly rhinoceros forward from the lower jaw to meet the upper
Coelodonta had no canines but had large cheek front teeth. All these adaptations, and more,
teeth for grinding tough vegetation. A mammoth have been inherited by modern mammals,
had giant chewing teeth, and its incisors had ranging from wolves and lions to elephants
become tusks. Marsupials like Diprotodon and kangaroos. 189

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