Research overview: dental reduction in the evolution of cats

This overview examines one of the defining trends in felid evolution: the progressive loss and simplification of teeth from the relatively full dentition of Proailurus to the highly reduced tooth row of modern cats. Early cats retained more premolars and a less specialized cheek dentition, but over the course of the Miocene the lineage shed teeth and sharpened its remaining carnassials into efficient meat-shearing blades, reflecting an increasingly hypercarnivorous diet. The survey reviews how Pseudaelurus-grade and later felids document this stepwise reduction, what it reveals about dietary specialization, and how dental formulae help distinguish cats from other carnivorans. It frames dental reduction as a key marker of the transition from generalized early felids to the obligate meat-eaters that cats became.