In the past two decades, researching the functional morphology of primate teeth has managed to make connections with certain diets. Long molar crest length has been associated with leaf and insect diets, cups sharpness with insect diets, and low crown relief with fruit diets. However, there has been little attention to the obvious variation in the physical properties of foods (eg. hardness of various preferred fruits or nuts, or even in leaf tenderness). Also, seasonal variation in diets has not been addressed systematically in such studies, but clearly that is an important variable. This study will address these and related issues in field and museum studies of a series of Madagascar strepsirhines. It will provide insights into the relation of tooth form and structure to dietary variation.
