Anatomy and Adaptations of Early Eocene Mammals from Wyoming

怀俄明州的大角盆地有着丰富的 始新世沉积序列 它产生了一个 非常密集的脊椎动物化石记录， 牙齿，下颚，或者更罕见的头骨 这使得 这些哺乳动物是如何运作的 生态学（运动是首要问题）。 始新世 是现代脊椎动物家族 他们变得不同了，所以更好地了解他们的 运动能力会特别有价值。 肯尼斯·罗斯博士 多年来致力于收集详细的化石 记录了这些进化事件 他建议继续 他努力收集新的后颅骨遗骸，并利用这些 和现有的集合在功能和行为的分析。 罗斯博士将使用最新的方法来研究 骨骼化石的形状和功能，包括微型计算机- 基于图像分析以及与 活的哺乳动物 拟议中的研究将吸引观众超越 对始新世感兴趣的古脊椎动物学家 哺乳动物学家和功能形态学家将获得新的见解 进入哺乳动物家族的早期功能库， 进化生物学家会对这个过程感兴趣， 新的功能复合体在辐射家庭中出现。

The Bighorn Basin of Wyoming has a richly fossiliferous sedimentary sequence of Eocene age. It has yielded an extraordinarily dense record of vertebrate fossils, most of which are teeth, jaws, or more rarely, skulls. This has left open the question of how the these mammals functioned ecologically (locomotion being the primary question). The Eocene was a time interval in which the modern families of vertebrates were becoming differentiated, so a better understanding of their locomotion would be particularly valuable. Dr. Kenneth Rose has devoted years of effort to making detailed fossil collections that document these evolutionary events. He proposes to continue his efforts to collect new post-cranial remains, and to use these and existing collections in an analysis of function and behavior. Dr. Rose will use the most current approaches to studying the shapes and functions of fossil bone, including microcomputer- based image analysis as well as statistical comparisons with living mammals. The proposed research will attract an audience beyond vertebrate paleontologists interested in the Eocene. Mammalogists and functional morphologists will gain new insight into the early functional repertoire of mammalian families, and evolutionary biologists will take interest in the process by which new functional complexes arise in radiating families.