Elemental compositions of enamel and dentine in Komodo dragon teeth: a window into dinosaur dentistry?

Meat-eating dinosaurs (therapods) exhibit ziphodont teeth: serrated, blade-like teeth with cutting edges comprised of a series of ‘denticle’ structures. We have recently observed extraordinary levels of structural organisation of the crystallites that form these features in tyrannosaur teeth. To extrapolate structure-function relationships we need to study modern analogues unaffected by fossilisation. We will study the teeth of Komodo dragons –one of the only living reptiles with similar features. In this experiment we wish to understand whether specific elemental distributions that are observed in fossil samples are important to the Komodo denticle structure or are an artefact of fossilisation.