Fossil Park

Morphology is the study of how fossil bones and/or teeth have changed in their size and shape over time. Changes in overall body shape and size, skeletal and dental anatomy and dental wear patterns can be used to deduce changes in diet, locomotion (the way the animal moves), positional and social behaviour
(for example, a species may change its diet over time as a result of competition with another species which eats the same food), feeding and foraging strategies and preferred habitat .
Ecomorphology correlates changes in morphology with changes in the behaviour of the animal, and in the paleoenvironment in which an animal lived. Changes in the average body size of a species may be used to extrapolate changes in environment or climate. For example, dassies (rock hyraxes) have been found to show shifts in body size which are directly related to changes in rainfall.

Micro-wear: Dental microwear is the study of the microscopic scratches and pits that form on a tooth's surface when an animal chews its food. Patterns of dental microwear on mammalian molar teeth reflect the material properties of food items eaten and provide a useful tool for investigating the diet of fossil animals. For example, heavily pitted molar surfaces generally suggest a diet consisting of harder, more brittle food items such as hard seeds, nuts or bone. In contrast, a heavily scratched shearing facet on a molar tooth usually indicates that that tooth was used to shear tough food items such as leaves or meat. Intermediate patterns indicate mixed diets, or diets with intermediate food properties.

The dental microwear patterns of living animals which eat a specific type of diet are studied in order to understand the patterns observed in fossil animals and to reconstruct their eating habits. Micro-wear is most commonly used in the analysis of fossil assemblages to distinguish between grazing, browsing and mixed feeder animals as this provides information on the plants and environment in which the animal lived. Differences in diet between the same species over time may be linked to morphological changes in the jawbones, skull or teeth.

It is also possible to reconstruct the diet of extinct animals, which in turn provides information on the environment in which they lived, by studying the carbon isotope ratios of the teeth of fossil animals. This is expanded upon in 'You are what you eat'.