Ms Annabel Worth

I am interested in major evolutionary transitions hypothesised to be drivers of crown group radiations, particularly in tetrapods and land plants, as well as the comparative and functional anatomy of vertebrates. I am excited by the opportunities presented by relatively recent digital techniques such as micro-CT imaging, in silico reconstruction and X-ray reconstruction of moving morphology (XROMM) to answer hundred-year old questions about homology, macroevolution and function.

My PhD, supervised by Dr Katrina Jones and Professor Emily Rayfield, within the Bristol Palaeobiology Group, is focussed on the functional evolution of the spine in synapsids. I am particularly interested in the role of neck mobility in mammal self-grooming, a behaviour that is unique to mammals and birds and which serves to clean their insulating fur and feathers. Therefore, perhaps an ability to self-groom, which I hope to be able to reconstruct from the fossil record, could be associated with the evolution of endothermy in synapsids. This would constitute a piece in a broader jigsaw of the elusive subject that is the evolution of endothermy. 

I am currently studying the craniocervical junction in amniotes, as this is one of two major sites of axial rotation of the head on the neck in mammals (the other being the cervicothoracic junction). I would like to elucidate the ways in which changes in morphology of the atlas-axis complex may have resulted in functional differences between mammals and reptiles.