Aurore Canoville, postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Cape Town (South Africa), visited Kirov during her research. Interest South African paleontologists take into their Vyatka colleagues’ finds is nonrandom. In Africa they have a huge locality of Permian age animals fossils, situated on Karoo Basin.
Karoo finds, of which there are many, are very close in the species composition to the finds from Kotel’nich pareiasaurs locality. Russian finds distinctive feature is their excellent preservation state. It lead Aurore to the idea of unique research on ancient reptiles bones microstructure, firstly pareiasaurs Deltavjatia vjatkensis and suminias Suminia getmanovi. Modern technologies allow precise research on bones microstructure by thin sections, thus making it possible to answer many questions about biology of ancient creatures.
Comparative analysis of bones structure of reptiles extinct 260 million years ago and their potential modern descendants makes it possible to draw evolutional parallels and probably answer the question of precise biological age of every animal researched. Aurore Canoville also visited Kotel’nich branch of Vyatka Palaeontological museum and Kotel’nich pareiasaur locality.
