Nadia Teixeira
MSc Student
Biological Sciences, University of Cape Town
Biography
I am Nadia, a MSc student at the University of Cape Town. My journey in biology began with a focus on conservation, however, my interest and passion for palaeobiology grew during my BSc Honours research. In my Honours dissertation, I focused on skeletochronology and the histology of Bearded Dragon long bones as well as comparing various methodologies for preparing histological slides.
Disciplines
Palaeobiology, Applied Biology, Marine Biology, and Ocean and Atmospheric sciences
Fields of study
For my MSc, I am studying the ontogeny of the dicynodont genus Lystrosaurus, which occurred during the End-Permian and Early-Triassic periods. I am looking at all four species: Lystrosaurus maccaigi, Lystrosaurus curvatus, Lystrosaurus declivis, and Lystrosaurus murrayi, and studying each species' ontogeny through geometric morphometric analysis of cranial elements. I aim to understand more about the factors that contributed to two of these species (Lystrosaurus declivis and Lystrosaurus murrayi) thriving after the End-Permian Mass extinction Event.
