Mark Andrew Purnell is a British

palaeontologist Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossi ...

, Professor of Palaeobiology at the

University of Leicester , mottoeng = So that they may have life , established = , type = public research university , endowment = £20.0 million , budget = £326 million , chancellor = David Willetts , vice_chancellor = Nishan Canagarajah , head_lab ...

. Purnell is an expert in conodont

biostratigraphy Biostratigraphy is the branch of stratigraphy which focuses on correlating and assigning relative ages of rock strata by using the fossil assemblages contained within them.Hine, Robert. “Biostratigraphy.” ''Oxford Reference: Dictionary of B ...

(principally Carboniferous) and conodont palaeobiology, focussing especially on attempts to uncover the function of conodont elements. Using conventional functional morphology,Purnell, M. A. and von Bitter, P. H. 1992. Blade-shaped conodont elements functioned as cutting teeth. ''Nature'' 359: 629-631 physical modelling Purnell, M. A. and Donoghue, P. C. J. 1998. Architecture and functional morphology of the skeletal apparatus of ozarkodinid conodonts. ''Palaeontology'' 41: 57-102 and microwearPurnell, M. A. 1995. Microwear on conodont elements and macrophagy in the first vertebrates. ''Nature'' 374: 798-800 analysis, Purnell uncovered unequivocal evidence that conodont elements had performed a mechanical tooth function in life, resolving a palaeobiological debate that had run for more than a century. His work has expanded in recent years to analysing feeding mechanisms of extinct

vertebrate Vertebrates () comprise all animal taxa within the subphylum Vertebrata () (chordates with backbones), including all mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish. Vertebrates represent the overwhelming majority of the phylum Chordata, with c ...

s more generally,Purnell, M. A. 2002. Feeding in extinct jawless heterostracan fishes and testing scenarios of early vertebrate evolution. ''Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series B'' 269: 83-88 Purnell, M. A., Bell, M. A., Baines, D. C., Hart, P. J. B. and Travis, M. P. 2007. Correlated evolution and dietary change in fossil stickleback. ''Science'' 317: 1887 exploiting microwear, including validation studies based on extant stickleback fish.Purnell, M. A., Hart, P. J. B., Baines, D. C. and Bell, M. A. 2006. Quantitative analysis of dental microwear in threespine stickleback: a new approach to analysis of trophic ecology in aquatic vertebrates. ''Journal of Animal Ecology'' 75: 967-977 Purnell was awarded the Hinde Medal of the

Pander society The Pander Society is an informal organisation founded in 1967 for the promotion of the study of conodont palaeontology. It publishes an annual newsletter. Although there are regular meetings of the Pander Society, at the Annual Meeting of the Ge ...

in 2006 and served as Vice-President of the

Palaeontological Association The Palaeontological Association (PalAss for short) is a charitable organisation based in the UK founded in 1957 for the promotion of the study of palaeontology and allied sciences. Publications The Association publishes two main journals: ' ...

from 2003-2005. In 2009, Purnell conducted a study into the chewing methods and diet of hadrosaurids, a herbivore species of duck-billed

dinosaur Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the evolution of dinosaurs is t ...

s from the Late Cretaceous period. The study, which Purnell co-authored with paleontologist Paul Barrett and graduate student Vince Williams, was published on 30 June 2009 in the journal, '' The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences''. By analyzing hundreds of microscopic scratches on the teeth of a fossilized '' Edmontosaurus'' jaw, the team determined hadrosaurs had a unique way of eating unlike any creature living today. In contrast to a flexible lower jaw joint prevalent in today's mammals, hadrosaurs had a unique hinge between the upper jaws and the rest of its skull. The team found the dinosaur's upper jaws pushed outwards and sideways while chewing, as the lower jaw slid against the upper teeth. The study also found that hadrosaurs likely grazed on horsetails and vegetation close to the ground, rather than browsing higher-growing leaves and twigs. However, Purnell said these conclusions were less secure than the more conclusive evidence regarding the motion of teeth while chewing.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Purnell, Mark British palaeontologists Conodont specialists Alumni of the University of Nottingham Alumni of Newcastle University Academics of the University of Leicester Living people Year of birth missing (living people)