News
August 2022
This month I visited the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, USA to mould some more extinct reptile teeth for my Leverhulme project. This was my first US-trip post-COVID and really enjoyed the experience. Chicago's a great city with an amazing skyline and walkways.
This month I visited the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, USA to mould some more extinct reptile teeth for my Leverhulme project. This was my first US-trip post-COVID and really enjoyed the experience. Chicago's a great city with an amazing skyline and walkways.
May 2022
This month I got to take part in the Secret Science Show at the Nottingham Natural History Museum as part of their spring/summer programme to promote Titus the T. rex, who was on display at the museum at the time. I am from Nottingham and visited this museum all the time when I was younger, so it was quite special to be back as a presenter!
This month I got to take part in the Secret Science Show at the Nottingham Natural History Museum as part of their spring/summer programme to promote Titus the T. rex, who was on display at the museum at the time. I am from Nottingham and visited this museum all the time when I was younger, so it was quite special to be back as a presenter!
I also had another paper published! This time we looked at skull size, relative to the rest of the body for a range of archosauromorph reptiles; the group that includes dinosaurs, crocodiles and pterosaurs. We specifically examined the skulls of erythrosuchids; basal archosauromorphs with massive heads that lived in the Early Triassic. See summary below.
April 2022
This month I got to visit the Stuttgart Natural History Museum in Germany to sample more extinct archosaurs for my Leverhulme project. A couple of examples below. I really enjoyed being back in Germany, especially because of the local food such as schnitzel!
This month I got to visit the Stuttgart Natural History Museum in Germany to sample more extinct archosaurs for my Leverhulme project. A couple of examples below. I really enjoyed being back in Germany, especially because of the local food such as schnitzel!
February 2022
Well, it unfortunately happened.. I caught COVID this month and I got it pretty bad. I spent the first four days on the sofa doing nothing but watch Cobra Kai and The Grand Tour and still felt terrible for the next few days. My sense of taste vanished on around day 8 of my infection and it took around three weeks for it to fully return! I'm on the mend now and trying to (slowly) regain my fitness.
Well, it unfortunately happened.. I caught COVID this month and I got it pretty bad. I spent the first four days on the sofa doing nothing but watch Cobra Kai and The Grand Tour and still felt terrible for the next few days. My sense of taste vanished on around day 8 of my infection and it took around three weeks for it to fully return! I'm on the mend now and trying to (slowly) regain my fitness.
November 2021
I have a new paper! This time not on microwear but on functional morphology and feeding behaviours of a Triassic reptile called Effigia. This reptile lived around 205 million years ago in Arizona and despite its appearance it was more closely related to modern day crocodiles than to dinosaurs! As part of this study, we CT-scanned the skull of Effigia and restored it to its original morphology as it was a little broken due to fossilisation. We then reconstructed the jaw musculature and subjected the model to different feeding simulations.
We found that despite the similarly of Effigia skulls to those of modern ostriches and ornithomimid dinosaurs, Effigia had a weak skull and therefore could not have bitten on hard food items, or pecked like modern birds. We therefore conclude that Effigia, may have been something of a Triassic "nibbler", feeding on only the softest parts of plants. Reconstruction of Effigia below by Mark Witton.
I have a new paper! This time not on microwear but on functional morphology and feeding behaviours of a Triassic reptile called Effigia. This reptile lived around 205 million years ago in Arizona and despite its appearance it was more closely related to modern day crocodiles than to dinosaurs! As part of this study, we CT-scanned the skull of Effigia and restored it to its original morphology as it was a little broken due to fossilisation. We then reconstructed the jaw musculature and subjected the model to different feeding simulations.
We found that despite the similarly of Effigia skulls to those of modern ostriches and ornithomimid dinosaurs, Effigia had a weak skull and therefore could not have bitten on hard food items, or pecked like modern birds. We therefore conclude that Effigia, may have been something of a Triassic "nibbler", feeding on only the softest parts of plants. Reconstruction of Effigia below by Mark Witton.
July 2021
I undertook a research trip to the London Natural History Museum to sample some Triassic reptiles as part of my research project at Birmingham. I really enjoyed being back in a museum handling specimens again after so long due to the pandemic.
I undertook a research trip to the London Natural History Museum to sample some Triassic reptiles as part of my research project at Birmingham. I really enjoyed being back in a museum handling specimens again after so long due to the pandemic.
Above are a couple of specimens I sampled while in London. Left: Ornithosuchus, a one a kind fossil from Scotland. This animal lived ~235 million years. I was very nervous when moulding the teeth of this specimen! Right: The lower jaw of Duriavenator, a carnivorous dinosaur that lived in England ~165 million years ago. The image shows the inside of the jaw and if you look closely at the base of the teeth, you can see the replacements already growing!
May 2021
I took part in I'm a Scientist, Get me out of here, an online student-led engagement activity where school students connect with scientists. This involved answering questions about my research and what it's like to be a scientist on forum boards to students from all across the country. Over the month of May I took part in around 18 sessions, interacting with several hundred students over the whole event. This was a really rewarding experience which I would thoroughly recommend to any early-career scientists. I even won "Scientist of the Week" in one week and I got a free commemorative mug!
I took part in I'm a Scientist, Get me out of here, an online student-led engagement activity where school students connect with scientists. This involved answering questions about my research and what it's like to be a scientist on forum boards to students from all across the country. Over the month of May I took part in around 18 sessions, interacting with several hundred students over the whole event. This was a really rewarding experience which I would thoroughly recommend to any early-career scientists. I even won "Scientist of the Week" in one week and I got a free commemorative mug!
November 2020
Another new paper just landed! This time we applied microwear analysis to phytosaurs - Triassic reptiles that superficially looked like modern crocodiles but were only distantly to them. Find out more in the infographic below.
Another new paper just landed! This time we applied microwear analysis to phytosaurs - Triassic reptiles that superficially looked like modern crocodiles but were only distantly to them. Find out more in the infographic below.
October 2020
Apologies for the lack of updates for the last few months. It's been a difficult few months with the lockdowns and trying to rearrange and reorganise how best to continue with my Leverhulme project given the seemingly never ending constraints and limitations placed on research. Nevertheless, I have some good news... my pterosaur microwear paper is finally published! We analyse the microwear of 17 species of pterosaur to constrain the potential diets of these flying reptiles. We also find the pterosaurs originally evolved as invertebrate consumers and then later became carnivores and piscivores!
Apologies for the lack of updates for the last few months. It's been a difficult few months with the lockdowns and trying to rearrange and reorganise how best to continue with my Leverhulme project given the seemingly never ending constraints and limitations placed on research. Nevertheless, I have some good news... my pterosaur microwear paper is finally published! We analyse the microwear of 17 species of pterosaur to constrain the potential diets of these flying reptiles. We also find the pterosaurs originally evolved as invertebrate consumers and then later became carnivores and piscivores!
Palaeoart depicting some of my main results from my latest paper. In the foreground we have Pterodactylus consuming a crayfish-like invertebrate, in the middle ground we have Rhamphorhynchus feeding on a fish and in the background we have Germanodactylus consuming a dragonfly-like insect. It's important to note that microwear does not tell us the taxonomic identities of consumed food items, but rather their material properties, and we use other lines of evidence (stomach contents, tooth morphology etc.) to inform what those items may have been. Photo credit: Mark Witton.
April 2020
April 1st marks the start of my new position as a postdoctoral research assistant at the University of Birmingham. Unfortunately due to the lockdown I'm spending it working from home which is not how I envisioned the start. Things are a little unclear with what will happen to the project in the short to medium term due to universities, museums and international travel all being closed down for a while. At least id gives me more time to write up my PhD chapters. Stay tuned for more updates.
April 1st marks the start of my new position as a postdoctoral research assistant at the University of Birmingham. Unfortunately due to the lockdown I'm spending it working from home which is not how I envisioned the start. Things are a little unclear with what will happen to the project in the short to medium term due to universities, museums and international travel all being closed down for a while. At least id gives me more time to write up my PhD chapters. Stay tuned for more updates.
January 2020
New paper published! I am a co-author on a paper that describes a 150 million year-old squid, Plesioteuthis from Solnhofen in Germany that has what appears to be the tooth of a pterosaur lodged in its body! The pterosaur perpetrator has been identified as a Rhamphorhynchus and the described fossil represents the first direct evidence of a failed predation attempt by a pterosaur. You can read the full article for free HERE.
New paper published! I am a co-author on a paper that describes a 150 million year-old squid, Plesioteuthis from Solnhofen in Germany that has what appears to be the tooth of a pterosaur lodged in its body! The pterosaur perpetrator has been identified as a Rhamphorhynchus and the described fossil represents the first direct evidence of a failed predation attempt by a pterosaur. You can read the full article for free HERE.
I graduated from the University with their traditional red and black robes. Of course it wouldn't be a Leicester graduation without a photo in front of the resident Tyrannosaurus, Jane.
December 2019
I've got a new job! We were awarded a Leverhulme Trust project grant to research the diets of Triassic dinosaurs and their archosaur relatives through a combination of dental microwear textural analysis and biomechancial modelling (see Research for more details). This grant will enable me to move to the University of Birmingham as a post-doctoral research assistant from April 2020, working with Richard Butler, Stephan Lautenschlager, Paul Barrett and Laura Porro.
I gave a talk at the 63rd Palaeontological Association Annual Meeting in Valencia, Spain, titled "Reconstructing diets of extinct reptiles from the Solnhofen Archipelago using dental microwear texture analysis". This research developed as a "spin-out project" from my PhD work which I am currently writing up. Stay tuned as this develops!
Big thanks to the entire organising committee for a brilliant conference. The city of Valencia is also an amazing place to visit. Rustic and futuristic at the same time.