NEWS

While re-examining the early reptile Cephalerpeton, PhD student Arjan Mann, working with two awesome undergrads, discovered another animal among the material. Several features indicate this new animal is a parareptile – a likely extinct lineage of reptiles that radiated in the Permian. The new animal, named Carbonodraco by Emily and Emily, lived in the Carboniferous. This new earliest record of the group adds a whole new taxonomic component to Carboniferous communities, and reveals amniotes were radiating much more rapidly than previously thought.

CBC story can be found at: https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/carbonodraco-fossil-1.5394231?__vfz=medium%3Dsharebar

Banner art by Henry Sharpe.

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Masters student Thomas Dudgeon was awarded the Senate Medal for outstanding academic achievement. Tom completed an awesome thesis on the skull and neuroanatomy of Champsosaurus – a Cretaceous-aged crocodile-like creature. Read the full story here, and other news about Tom’s awesome research here.

Photo of Tom by Pierre Poirier.

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Christmas comes early to the Maddin Lab. Our precious cargo of axolotls arrived at the Ottawa airport. After clearing customs, the cargo was taken straight to the lab where the weary travellers were unpacked and stocked in their new housing. Everyone was happy to receive a blood worm treat. We now have 8 adult axolotls, including 4 GFP-transgenic. They might also now be named after Santa’s reindeer. Stay tuned for updates from Rudolph and the gang.

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Equipment is arriving daily and we are almost a fully functional lab! On site we now have the capacity to perform basic molecular biology, fossil preparation, and CT data processing. Our animal housing is now installed and we just wait patiently for our breeding Xenopus and axolotls. The new lab is home to the CFI-funded in vivo Fluorescence Microscopy Lab. Infrastructure included in this facility include two state-of-the-art fluorescence microscopes and imaging software, micro-injection set-up, cryostat microtome, and an on-site animal facility for GFP-axolotl and Xenopus (…for now!). We will use the iFML to do developmental genetics and cell lineage tracing to address questions of skull formation and evolution in amphibians.

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In February, 2017, construction was completed and occupancy granted to the brand new Vertebrate Paleontology & Evolutionary Developmental Biology Lab, located in the Department of Earth Sciences, at Carleton University. The lab will provide research space to Maddin Lab members and affiliates conducting paleontology research (in house prep lab, CT analysis, imaging) and developmental biology research (histology/C&S, molecular biology, etc.).