Paul Bryne
What kinds of things were you looking at and documenting with the Burke collections?
In the Burke collections, I was looking at the vertebrae of a group of early ancestors to modern crocodilians, the Shuvosauridae. Their vertebrae have many hollowed-out pockets and depressions. My job was to determine if these depressions were associated with soft tissue extending from the pulmonary system. If these depressions were associated with pulmonary tissue, this means that some of the earliest ancestors of crocodilians could have had lungs more similar to those of extant birds than crocodilians.
What is something fun or unexpected that happened to you during your visit to the Burke?
I was really happy to spend some time with my friend and colleague, Elliott Armour Smith. He is an expert on shuvosaurids, and he happened to be working on the vertebrae as I was visiting. We had a few great conversations about how to reconstruct the biology of these unique animals. Afterward, we celebrated by eating as much pasta as we could in one sitting.
