DinoBite: Kiersten Formoso, Ph.D.
Saturday, January 25, 1:30 - 1:55 p.m.
Land Before Sea: Terrestrial Ancestry and Aquatic Morphology
Many groups of reptiles and mammals evolved to return to aquatic environments where they swim with their bodies and tails, the surfaces of their limbs, or a combination. But the terrestrial ancestors of these secondarily aquatic animals also span a range of locomotion styles from sprawling lizards to upright ungulates. Learn about the different types of terrestrial movement and how such may have influenced the swimming styles of animals like mosasaurs, whales, plesiosaurs, and seals.
About the Speaker
Kiersten Formoso, Ph.D., is a Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow at Rutgers University in New Jersey. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles studying how terrestrial ancestry influences evolution into aquatic environments. Formoso is keen on the intersection of locomotion and major evolutionary transformations. Outside of her research and teaching, she is a musician, playing trombone in chamber ensembles, and really loves James Cameron movies, especially Avatar: The Way of Water.