Natalie Warburton

Internationally I am the highest ranked researcher working on marsupial anatomy. My work encompasses both qualitative and quantitative techniques and has published in a range of international journals in the disciplines of ecology and evolution, anatomy, zoology and palaeontology.

Marsupials come in a diverse range of shapes and sizes, from tiny planigales (4g) to large bodied kangaroos (up to around 80 kg), and extinct giants such as Diprotodon, that move through their environment by walking, climbing, running, bounding or digging.

My work investigating the anatomy (primarily of the musculoskeletal skeletal) of marsupials has encompassed evolutionary adaptations for:
· digging and subterranean locomotion
· climbing or arboreal locomotion
· bipedal bounding locomotion
· terrestrial quadrupedal and pentapedal locomotion
· mechanical processing of food
· thermoregulation and homeostasis
· reproduction
· drivers of the anatomy of the musculoskeletal system beyond natural selection including sexual selection and ontogeny.

My publications in marsupial palaeontology directly model the anatomical techniques and approaches outlined in the proposed project, modelling the process of transferring knowledge gained through dissection of extant fauna to the interpretation of fossil forms. This has included the description of extinct species of tree-kangaroos Bohra, semi-arboreal wallabies Congruus, and ongoing investigations of a wide range of extinct marsupials.