Brawn before brains in placental mammals after the end-Cretaceous extinction

OC Bertrand, SL Shelley, TE Williamson, JR Wible… - Science, 2022 - science.org
Mammals are the most encephalized vertebrates, with the largest brains relative to body
size. Placental mammals have particularly enlarged brains, with expanded neocortices for …

The impact of locomotion on the brain evolution of squirrels and close relatives

OC Bertrand, HP Püschel, JA Schwab… - Communications …, 2021 - nature.com
How do brain size and proportions relate to ecology and evolutionary history? Here, we use
virtual endocasts from 38 extinct and extant rodent species spanning 50+ million years of …

Brain size and shape diversification in a highly diverse South American clade of rodents (Echimyidae): a geometric morphometric and comparative phylogenetic …

JA Fernández Villoldo, DH Verzi… - Biological Journal of …, 2023 - academic.oup.com
Brain morphological variation is analysed through virtual endocasts in a highly diversified
clade of caviomorph rodents belonging to the family Echimyidae. Diversification in brain size …

The first major primate extinction: an evaluation of paleoecological dynamics of North American stem primates using a homology free measure of tooth shape

KA Prufrock, DM Boyer… - American Journal of …, 2016 - Wiley Online Library
Objectives The disappearance of the North American plesiadapoids (stem primates, or
plesiadapiforms) in the latest Paleocene has been attributed to competition with rodents …

Occipital condyle width (OCW) is a highly accurate predictor of body mass in therian mammals

RK Engelman - BMC biology, 2022 - Springer
Background Body mass estimation is of paramount importance for paleobiological studies,
as body size influences numerous other biological parameters. In mammals, body mass has …

Virtual endocasts of fossil Sciuroidea: brain size reduction in the evolution of fossoriality

OC Bertrand, F Amador‐Mughal, MM Lang… - …, 2018 - Wiley Online Library
Aplodontia rufa (mountain beaver) is the only extant member of the Aplodontidae. The fossil
record indicates that this family displayed greater taxonomic and ecological diversity in the …

Surfaces and spaces: troubleshooting the study of dietary niche space overlap between North American stem primates and rodents

KA Prufrock, S López-Torres, MT Silcox… - Surface Topography …, 2016 - iopscience.iop.org
Dental topographic metrics provide quantitative, biologically meaningful data on the three-
dimensional (3D) form of teeth. In this study, three dental topographic metrics (Dirichlet …

Scaling patterns of cerebellar petrosal lobules in Euarchontoglires: Impacts of ecology and phylogeny

MM Lang, OC Bertrand… - The Anatomical …, 2022 - Wiley Online Library
The petrosal lobules (in whole or part homologous with the paraflocculi) of the cerebellum
regulate functions associated with vision including smooth pursuit and velocity control of eye …

Virtual endocast of the early Oligocene Cedromus wilsoni (Cedromurinae) and brain evolution in squirrels

OC Bertrand, F Amador‐Mughal… - Journal of Anatomy, 2017 - Wiley Online Library
Extant squirrels exhibit extensive variation in brain size and shape, but published
endocranial data for living squirrels are limited, and no study has ever examined brain …

First virtual endocasts of a fossil rodent: Ischyromys typus (Ischyromyidae, Oligocene) and brain evolution in rodents

OC Bertrand, MT Silcox - Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 2016 - Taylor & Francis
The evolution of the brain in rodents has rarely been studied from the perspective of the
fossil record. Here we describe the first virtual endocast of a fossil rodent, pertaining to …