Seminar

Past understanding of dinosaur dentition relies heavily on external examination, and often of isolated fossilized teeth. There has a been a shift to understand various aspects of internal dental anatomy such as tooth development, replacement, attachment and implantation, through paleohistology, but most groups of dinosaurs remain understudied. Theropod dinosaurs, a group more commonly referred to as meat eating dinosaurs, contain multiple lineages that have undergone significant dietary shifts to omnivory or herbivory. To facilitate these new diets there were corresponding changes to their dentition. Within theropods, Paraves is a group containing modern birds that encompasses the full range of diets from herbivory to carnivory. Paleohistological examination of the dentition of paravian dinosaurs would shed light on the variation in dental changes in response to dietary shifts and its relevance to broader patterns of dental evolution in dinosaurs and amniotes in general.

Additional information: Mr. Raymond Fong, raymond.fong@connect.hku.hk