Structure of ivory

作者：Michael Locke · 发表于：Journal of Morphology · 年份：2007 · DOI：10.1002/jmor.10585 · 被引用次数：103 · 研究领域：Cephalopods and Marine Biology、Meat and Animal Product Quality、Marine animal studies overview

Profiles with all orientations have been used to visualize the 3D structure of ivory from tusks of elephant, mammoth, walrus, hippopotamus, pig (bush, boar, and warthog), sperm whale, killer whale, and narwhal. Polished, forming, fractured, aged, and stained surfaces were prepared for microscopy using epi-illumination. Tusks have a minor peripheral component, the cementum, a soft derivative of the enamel layer, and a main core of dentine=ivory. The dentine is composed of a matrix of particles 5-20 microm in diameter in a ground substance containing dentinal tubules about 5 microm in diameter with a center to center spacing of 10-20 microm. Dentinal tubules may be straight (most) or curly (pigs). The main findings relate to the way that dentinal tubules align in sheets to form microlaminae in the length of the tusk. Microlaminae are sheets of laterally aligned dentinal tubules. They are axial but may be radial (most), angled to the forming face (pigs and hippopotamus canines), or radial but helical (narwhals). Within the microlaminae the dentinal tubules may be radial, angled to the axis (whales, walrus, and pigs), or may change their orientation from one microlamina to the next in helicoids (canines of hippopotamuses, incisors of proboscidea). In the nonbanded, featureless ivories from the hippopotamus incisors, the dentinal tubules form radial microlamina from which the arrangements in other ivories can be derived. In the canines of hippopotamuses and incisors of proboscidea...