Despite more than 200 years of continual research on dinosaurs, identifying to which species particular isolated bones and teeth belong is a problem that has not been resolved to satisfaction, and the issue is an important one as most of the dinosaur fossils discovered are isolated bones and teeth. Predatory dinosaur teeth are among the most common vertebrate fossils found in sediments of Mesozoic age and, being covered with enamel, the hardest substance in the vertebrate body, usually preserve a large amount of their original anatomy when preserved as fossils. As such, predatory dinosaur teeth would be an important dataset if these elements could be confidently correlated with particular species. As with isolated bones, however, the previous work that has been done on these teeth has not resulted in a rigorous means by which to confidently correlate them with species. That then, is the purpose of this project. The project's aims are twofold. The first is to develop a means by which it is possible to correlate an isolated tooth with a known species. The second is to amass a dataset of teeth known to come from particular species to serve as a standard against which to compare isolated teeth. The first goal is being addressed by deriving a series of quantitative measurements that do a satisfactory job of describing tooth morphology (quantitative measurements are relied on here because predatory dinosaur teeth are fairly simple structures that preserve few diagnostic anatomical features, which is the reason that they are so difficult to identify when isolated). The second goal is being addressed by using these measurements to collect data from teeth located within the jaws of known species. Much of the work related to this project is thus involved in measuring teeth of known species for inclusion into the standard dataset, to make it as complete as possible. With these two tasks accomplished it should then be possible to make the same measurements on an isolated tooth of unknown species affinity and compare it to the standard dataset, hopefully resulting in a classification of that tooth as one of the species in the dataset. This work should facilitate many lines of paleontological inquiry. The ability to confidently identify more predatory dinosaur teeth in a fossil assemblage should improve research on faunal change and extinctions as well as on population dynamics and predator/prey relationships. The methods used here might serve as a model for other researchers to explore dental morphology in other groups of animals as well. Ultimately, the methods, data, and image database will be put online for access by all researchers interested in the subject. This should facilitate the work being followed up and critiqued. The research is also public friendly. These teeth are spectacular and easy to transport fossils; something a popular science audience is sure to respond to. If communicated correctly, this project might be a good way to show that paleontology can be more than trophy hunting dead animals; it is especially well suited to demonstrating the nature of hypothesis testing in science.
