[Process of mandibular ossification in mice and evolutionary morphology (experimental study by means of vital...

The injection in vivo of red alizarin S. in young mice during the post-natal period, enabled to show the mechanisms that were modeling the mandible during its development (by apposition-resorption). So it was possible to study : the processes of ossification involved in the eruption of the teeth, the modifications of the bony relief and the alterations of the mandibular angle. It has been attempted to find the links between these phenomena and muscular excitation, function and behaviour. The study of the osseous - muscular - mandibular anatomical set provided a good example of the principle described in Evolutionary morphology: "The comparatively free evolution of the elements in the anatomical set that they constitute (Sakka, 1973)."