Elevator Pitch ABNA - Biobanking: Shaping the Future Together

194.  Insights into the brain-braincase relationship across the Sarcopterygii, Lissamphibia and Lepidosauria (#19)

Corinne L Mensforth 1
  1. Flinders University, Adelaide, SA, Australia

Although gross brain morphology is well understood across most vertebrates, the spatial relationship to the braincase has received less attention. The increasing access to non-destructive scanning technology through online databases permits measuring brain and braincase volume from a wider range of animals than ever before. Much of this recent work shows that this relationship can be highly variable between species. Among birds and mammals the brain occupies the majority of the braincase and thus a similar volume. In contrast, among sarcopterygians (lobe-finned fish), amphibians and non-avian reptiles there can be great variation in brain and braincase volume. In this poster the brain-braincase relationship is quantified in several species from major clades across the vertebrate tree. Results show that the volume of the brain within the braincase is highly variable among species: 30-80%. Once quantified, tightness-of-fit 'heat maps' were used to illustrate the distance between the surface of the brain and the braincase. These results build on recent studies showing similar variability in the brain-braincase relationship between different taxa. These results also contribute to a greater understanding of brain-braincase spatial relationships among vertebrates and will prove useful for future work when interpreting fossil cranial endocasts of extinct vertebrates.