Fossil remains from the Family Bovidae, such as antelopes and buffalo, are frequently used to reconstruct past environments1,2,3. Bovids reflect distinct ecological adaptations in terms of diet, habitat, water dependence, and seasonal migrations that vary according to their respective ecological niches. Widespread cooling in the late Miocene led to a major adaptive radiation of the bovids, and increasingly they began to exploit more open environments4,5,6. Thus, by approximately 4 Ma, bovids came to dominate the African fauna, replacing the previously abundant suids7,8,9. The current distribution of bovids extends across the African continent in myriad environments that differ significantly in proportions of wood and grass cover.
The importance of bovid remains to paleoanthropological research was established initially by Broom10,11 and Wells and Cooke12. This dependence has been expanded and now ranges from paleodietary studies and evolutionary trends to hominin behavioral patterns13,14,15. In addition, several studies have demonstrated that changes in the relative abundance of bovid taxa reflected in fossil assemblages are indicative of fluctuations in environmental conditions, as bovids appear to be particularly responsive to environmental changes16,17,18.
Bovid teeth, in particular isolated teeth, make up a majority of the southern African fossil record. Thus, bovid teeth, coupled with their ecological tendencies, are important sources of information for reconstructing the paleoenvironments associated with the fossil hominins. Taxonomic identification of fossil bovid teeth, however, is often problematic; biasing factors such as age and degree of wear complicate identifications and often result in considerable overlap in the shape and size of teeth. Traditionally, researchers rely upon modern and fossil comparative collections to identify isolated bovid teeth. However, researchers are somewhat limited by travel and the specific type and number of bovids housed at each institution. Here, we present B.O.V.I.D. (Bovidae Occlusal Visual IDentification) which is a repository of images of the occlusal surface of bovid teeth (~3900). The purpose of the database is to allow researchers to visualize a large sample of teeth from different tribes, genera, and species. The sample includes the three upper and three lower molars in multiple states of wear from the seven most common tribes in the southern African fossil record and the twenty most common species from those tribes. This design will help researchers see the natural variation that exists within a specific tooth type of a taxon and, with the current sample, help taxonomically identify extant and fossil teeth with modern counterparts.
Source: Ecology - nature.com
