Bethel Resident Presents Fossil Research At International Conference

From Suffolk University: Cecilia Osimanti of Bethel, Conn., a senior studying biology at Suffolk University in Boston, presented original research in October at the 76th Annual Meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology in Salt Lake City.

Osimanti began focusing on fossil research with Suffolk Biology Professor Eric Dewar as a freshman.

“I’m interested in how fossils can relate to or be used to determine how animals lived in prehistoric times,” she said.

She presented her project about evidence of diet in extinct hoofed mammals who lived during a period of climate change 37-30 million years ago and how the mammals of that time were not as tied to the land as was previously thought.

Osimanti examined tooth wear on fossils from small and large hoofed mammals, including rhinos, horses, and deer.

“I looked at 1,000 individual specimens,” said Osimanti, who studied images and casts of fossils from the White River Badlands, a system running from South Dakota to Colorado, and worked with fossils at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard.

She also co-authored a platform talk presented by Dewar, and she is drafting manuscript on her research to be published as soon as next spring.

She also has discussed careers with Dewar. One area of interest is working for the National Park Service, and there was no better place than this meeting to meet other paleontologists working in the parks to talk about careers.

Photo courtesy of Suffolk University ((L-R): Professor Eric Dewar, Cecilia Osimanti, and Bailey Damron pose in front of a dinosaur mount at the Annual Meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology.)