Using radii-of-curvature for the reconstruction of extinct South African carnivoran masticatory behavior

Paleoanthropologists have hypothesized that, during the evolution of increased carnivory in our lineage, hominins transitioned through a scavenging niche created by certain carnivoran taxa (especially sabertooths) that may have lacked the morphology necessary to utilize all parts of carcasses, thus leaving an open niche of high-quality scavengable remains. In this article, we examine the postcanine dentition of modern and fossil carnivorans using quantifications of occlusal radii-of-curvature (ROC) and correlate this morphology with feeding behavior to deduce the carcass-processing capabilities of the Plio-Pleistocene carnivores of South Africa. ROC data do a good job of separating taxa by dietary category, revealing possible differences in the carcass-processing abilities of fossil and modern members of some extant species, and confirming that Chasmaporthetes was probably a hypercarnivore and not a durophage like the modern hyenas. Contrary to previous hypotheses, sabertooth felids do not appear to have been more hypercarnivorous than modern felids based on these data.