Julie Kazimiroff, dental professor at NYU College of Dentistry, attempts to cover the issue of cusp patterns with respect to relatedness among the hominoids. She starts off by posing a question regarding the 5 cusp (Y-5) molar pattern present in extant primates. To begin with, she emphasizes the importance of teeth to phylogenetics, as they are often times all that survives from an organism. DNA is brought into the paper to explain how testing techniques have been utilized to enhance the answering of relatedness questions, particularly in terms of chimps, apes and humans. In her title she mentions Dryopithecus, an early "dental ape" thought to be an early hominoid. Dr

Some common words found in the essay are:
College Dentistry, Y-5 Dryopithecus, cusp patterns, Julie Kazimiroff, cusp pattern, extant primates, y-5 cusp pattern, found extant primates, hominoid dryopithecus, tritubercular theory, found extant, dryopithecus pattern, molar pattern, y-5 cusp,
Approximate Word count = 488
Approximate Pages = 2 (250 words per page double spaced)