Crocodilian Synchrotron

The focus of this research is to non-destructively investigate the dental microstructures of the very earliest occurring fossil crocodilians and their closest relatives, rauisuchians. Fossil crocodilians were an extremely diverse group of animals, and vastly different from the sedentary semi-aquatic crocodiles that we know today. These fossil crocodilians had a great diversity of ecologies, including a terrestrial lifestyle, hyper-carnivory, herbivory and insectivory. Dental microstructures such as surface dental complexity, enamel-dentin junction thickness variances, dental histology can tell us alot about the ecology and lifestyles of fossil vertebrates. Dental research has been very promising in Mammalia and Dinosauria and has proven important for investigating taxonomy, physiology, phylogenetics and diet in these clades. However, this has yet to be investigated in fossil crocodilians. South Africa has one of the best fossil records of the very earliest crocodilians globally, and the ESI holds many of these specimens in its Karoo collections. Given the rarity of crocodilian fossils, the dental microstructures and histology must be investigated non-destructively, and synchrotron x-rays are able to penetrate dense fossil material and resolve structures at a submicron level. This presents an opportunity to investigate novel structures in fossil crocodilians.