You Are What You Eat: Revealing Dinosaur Diets Using Fossil Tooth Chemistry

Presented by Dr. Thomas Cullen of Auburn University, March 7, 2024.
Fossils rarely preserve behaviour, but several approaches exist that allow scientists to understand the behaviours of extinct animals. One such approach is the analysis of fossil teeth to examine their chemical composition. Although soft tissues are generally lost in fossilization, teeth preserve very well, and scientists can measure the chemical composition of fossil teeth to infer the diets, habitat preferences, and movement patterns of extinct animals. In this presentation, Dr. Cullen provides an overview of some techniques used to learn more about the diet and ecosystems of dinosaurs from the Cretaceous of Western Canada.