Presented by Aaron Kilmury, University of Manitoba, February 23, 2023.
The Late Cretaceous Western Interior Seaway of Manitoba was once home to a number of creatures. Aaron Kilmury's talk transports listeners to what life was like for small vertebrates when much of Manitoba was covered in water. Kilmury's masters thesis re-examines the vertebrate community zonation hypothesis, a topic that has not been looked at in more than 30 years. Comparing Manitoba's fossil record with other places in North America, Kilmury discovers that a strong size bias exists toward the overrepresentation of large-bodied vertebrates. Kilmury's study of microvertebrate assemblages was conducted to counteract this size bias, and has revealed several significant discoveries, including new microvertebrate material.