Reisz Lab: News

September 2002

*Cough* And you thought Corwin was "sometimes diligent"...

Professor Reisz has been typically busy over the recent past. He has coauthored a couple of recent papers in Nature on the development of lungfish tooth plates (Reisz and Smith, 2001) and the first herbivorous amniote that "chewed" its food, with former lab member Natalia Rybcznski (Rybcznski and Reisz, 2001). He and former student Michel Laurin have contributed an article (Reisz and Laurin, 2001) and discussion paper (Reisz and Laurin, 2002) on Macroleter and a possible correlation between the Permian deposits of North America and Russia, in the GSA Bulletin. Varanopid projects are coming fast and furious, with a paper describing a new genus from the Hamilton Quarry being accepted by the Canadian Journal of Earth Science (Reisz and Dilkes, in press) and another new genus, this time from Russia, is described in a paper currently being reviewed by the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology (Anderson and Reisz, in review). On-going studies sees Robert having to "work" in Russia and Paris. On top of all of this Robert has assumed the duties of Associate Editor for the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

Jason's big news is his recent receipt of an NSERC Postdoctoral Fellowship, which supports his investigations into the relationships of Paleozoic tetrapods and the origins of modern amphibians. In collaboration with Drs. John Bolt and David Berman Jason is beginning studies of various dissorophoid temnospondyls, ultimately to incorporate these groups into his (Anderson, 2001, Systematic Biology) analysis of lepospondyl relationships to test various hypotheses about the origin of modern amphibians. Additionally, he has recently returned proof sheets on his revision of the aistopod Phlegethontia (Anderson, 2002, Journal of Paleontology) and a discussion paper on phylogenetic taxonomy in Systematic Biology (Anderson, 2002). Two other papers from his thesis are accepted and will be out...sometime, in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. Finally, Jason just returned from a field trip to Hortons Bluff, Nova Scotia, where he found some tetrapod fossils and learned all about the bloodworm fishery.

Richard is plugging away on his thesis work. He has his name on several abstracts for the upcoming Society of Vertebrate Paleontology 2002 meetings. He spent another summer's field season at the Bromacker Quarry in Germany with the Carnegie Museum crew, finding fossils that may contribute to his current project describing a new diadectid from that locality. His master's project has been published in the Journal of Paleontology (Kissel and Lehman, 2002), a paper on a new species of Captorhinus is coming soon (this month) in the Canadian Journal of Earth Science (Kissel, Dilkes and Reisz, 2002), and a paper describing a new synapsid from the Hamilton Quarry is currently in review (Reisz and Kissel, in review). Finally, Richard is really looking forward to his coursework this year. And if you believe that...

David, other than teaching like mad, planning his upcoming nuptials (Congrats David!) and contributing to the aforementioned papers on the Hamilton Quarry varanopid and Richards Spur captorhinid, is bringing his exhaustive description of Doswellia to conclusion. Aiding him in illustration preparation was Kevin Dupuis, who did a term internship with David as part of his biological illustration program at Sheridan College. Kevin did such amazing work (and so quickly!) that Robert hired him for the summer. His contract has been extended to December now, and we've no real good idea when we'll finally be rid of him. He's even becoming a skilled preparator!

December 2000

Much time has passed since the last update. The "sometimes diligent" previous maintainer of this page, Corwin Sullivan, has successfully defended his M.Sc. ("Cranial anatomy of the Late Permian dicynodont Diictodon, and its bearing on aspects of the taxonomy, palaeobiology and phylogenetic relationships of the genus") and has packed off his html editor and headed south to Harvard. There he has began his PhD studies with Prof. Farrish Jenkins in the Museum of Comparative Zoology on a subject "that has not been decided upon yet." We wish Corwin well in his future endeavors, although papers in collaboration with members of this lab are continuing.

With the sadness of saying good-bye comes the excitement of seeing new faces! The Reisz lab wishes to welcome new graduate student Richard Kissel, fresh from an MS from Texas Tech University, under the supervision of Prof. Thomas Lehman. Richard (after a detour to Bromacker, Germany) is off and running, putting together a paper with David Dilkes on captorhinomorphs, as well as teaching two sections of Vertebrate Form and Function. Richard is joined in the office by new postdoc Jason Anderson, who has just defended his Ph.D. thesis ("Anatomy, functional morphology and phylogeny of Aistopoda (Vertebrata; Tetrapoda)") at the Redpath Museum of McGill University under the supervision of Prof. Robert Carroll. Jason will be continuing phylogenetic investigations into the relationships of Paleozoic "amphibians" (if he can ever find the time amidst all the marking). Finally, Sean Modesto, a former graduate student in the lab, has returned to Toronto after a three year postdoc in South Africa. Sean is now working with Hans-Dieter Sues at the R.O.M. on early reptiles.

Two recent projects have come to fruition (and a fair amount of press!). The "bolosaurid" project so frequently mentioned in these pages has now seen print in Science. Eudibamus is the first tetrapod to show adaptations towards bipedal locomotion, and its not a dinosaur! The specimen comes from the Permian Bromacker locality in Germany, and predates bipedal dinosaurs and advanced archosauromorphs like Lagosuchus by 80 million years. The second paper, published in Nature, disputes claims by other researchers that the elongate dermal structures found on the undetermined archosaurimorph Longisquama are an early stage of feather development. The structures in Longisquama, unlike feathers, are found to be thick vein-less, and quite different in detail from what is found in feathers.

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April 2000

Thanks to the end of the spring term, Corwin, David and Robert are all liberated from their teaching responsibilities and have been enjoying the opportunity to concentrate on research and other weighty matters; Robert went so far as to abscond to Hungary for a brief but enjoyable vacation, while David returned to preparing his Doswellia material with a vengeance. The bolosaurid project is drawing near to completion, and Diane's very lifelike reconstruction of the animal is now complete apart from editorial revisions. Diane has also been working like mad on a paper describing a methodology for drawing skull reconstructions, in collaboration with former student Natalia Rybczynski (now at Duke University). Corwin, presently suffering through the process of reconstructing the infuriatingly complex cranium of Diictodon, wishes they'd written it months ago so that he could form some coherent idea of what he's actually supposed to be doing. On the positive side, he managed to finish off a preliminary version of his tetrapod phylogeny study, and was gratified to hear that his paper on Richards Spur dissorophoids (with Robert, and Bill May from Oklahoma) has finally been accepted for publication.

On the cyberspace side of things, the "lab personnel page" is now up and running at last, so the framework of the web site is essentially complete. Traffic has been a bit disappointing so far, but Corwin has grandiose plans to rectify the situation by convincing all the really popular palaeontology sites to link to us - we'll see what happens. We've also found out that Robert's former student Sean Modesto will probably be returning from South Africa to start post-doctoral work at the Royal Ontario Museum in September, so we're all eagerly anticipating his arrival. We've also managed to recruit another graduate student, Richard Kissel from Pennsylvania, so he should be joining us in the fall as well.

We're finally on line! After nearly three months of designing, implementing, re-designing, re-implementing, and simply procrastinating, we've finally succeeded in throwing together a semi-presentable version of this web site. In the meantime, we've been slogging ahead with our "real work", which as usual involves juggling several different research projects with various teaching and other responsibilities. In collaboration with David Berman of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Robert and Diane are approaching the final stages of a descriptive study of a bolosaurid reptile from the Permian of Germany - that very hole in the ground, in fact, where Corwin got so disgracefully filthy last summer (see the Methods page). It's a small lizard-like creature, but remarkable for its light, gracile build and its probable ability to adopt a bipedal gait from time to time. Diane is dividing her time between a "fleshed out" reconstruction of this animal and some preparatory work on enigmatic fossil eggs that Robert recently brought back from South Africa, as well as a beautiful skull of the synapsid Ophiacodon. For reasons known only to her, she has christened the latter specimen "Tina".

When not preoccupied with his extensive teaching responsibilities, David is continuing to work on an early, heavily armoured archosaur called Doswellia, together with Hans Sues of the Royal Ontario Museum. Corwin is frantically trying to wrap up a short study on the phylogeny of tetrapods, in addition to his ongoing M.Sc. thesis research on the dicynodont "mammal-like reptile" Diictodon. The distant light at the end of the thesis tunnel is now bright enough that Corwin is hoping to wrap things up by the end of summer and move on to Ph.D. work at Harvard in the fall, which should be entirely possible provided that he is willing to forget about sleeping for three or four weeks.