Research Interests
My research combines traditional descriptive and anatomical study with computer-aided morphometric analysis and modeling of vertebrate skeletons. The focus of my research is limb functional morphology in dinosaurs, as well as the broader locomotor and evolutionary implications of size. I am particularly interested in the evolution and locomotor adaptations of the giant, terrestrial sauropod dinosaurs. These long-necked herbivores attained sizes no other dinosaurian or mammalian group has ever approached on land; part of sauropod success as giants may be tied to limb morphology and specializations.
Dr. Matthew Bonnan and Dr. Adam Yates (a Senior Research Officer in the Bernard Price Institute at the University of the Witswatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa) examine the bones of three new sauropodomorph dinosaurs to be announced and formalized in the coming months. These dinosaurs were discovered by Dr. Bonnan, Dr. Yates, Dr. Johann Neveling, and a team of students at the University of the Witswatersrand near Lesotho in the Free State Province of South Africa.