Richardson J D, Cripps P J, Lane J G
Department of Clinical Veterinary Science, University of Bristol, Langford.
Vet Rec. 1995 Jul 29;137(5):117-21. doi: 10.1136/vr.137.5.117.
Dental features are commonly expected to provide an accurate estimate of a horse's age. In this study the dentition of 434 thoroughbreds was photographed and the individual dental features documented, the true age of all the horses was known. For each dental feature the correlation with true age was determined. The eruption of the incisor teeth was the most consistent feature but it was not totally reliable. The presence of a hook on the upper corner incisor and Galvayne's groove proved to be of no value when estimating age and, of the attritional features studied, the dental star showed the highest correlation with age. The results show that specific ages cannot be assigned to these dental criteria owing to the wide variation between horses, and that as a result the estimation of age from dentition can never be precise.
人们通常认为牙齿特征能准确估算马的年龄。在本研究中，对434匹纯种马的牙列进行了拍照，并记录了个体牙齿特征，所有马匹的真实年龄均已知。对于每个牙齿特征，确定其与真实年龄的相关性。切齿的萌出是最一致的特征，但并不完全可靠。上隅切齿上的钩和加尔韦恩沟在估计年龄时并无价值，在所研究的磨损特征中，齿星与年龄的相关性最高。结果表明，由于马匹之间存在广泛差异，无法根据这些牙齿标准确定具体年龄，因此根据牙列来估计年龄永远无法精确。
