Morphometrics
Methods and collections
Measuring differences in shape
Two bones from the same species are not necessarily identical. Morphometrics describes and compares variation in shape, helping researchers investigate its causes.
From bone to measured model
Three-dimensional geometric morphometrics compares corresponding anatomical landmarks, supplemented by points describing bone curves and surfaces. Configurations are aligned to remove differences in position, orientation and scale, allowing shape variation to be analysed separately from size.
Each point in the plots represents a specimen. Principal component analysis summarises the main patterns of shape variation; the associated 3D models show the corresponding anatomical differences.
Two femur morphologies in ornithomimosaurs
The 2023 study identifies two femur groups differing in shaft curvature and the width of the end nearest the knee. This distinction is not explained by specimen size alone. Comparisons with living birds and crocodilians led the authors to interpret it as sexual dimorphism.
This interpretation concerns differences between two groups; it does not directly establish which morphology belongs to males or females.
Read the study by Pintore, Cornette, Houssaye and Allain (2023) ↗
Growth and deformation: two sources of variation
Angeac’s bones come from individuals of different ages and sizes. Some were also fractured or distorted after burial. To reconstruct the composite ornithomimosaur skeleton, Florent Goussard reassembled digitised fragments, corrected deformations and matched their proportions. Reconstruction and morphometric analysis have different aims, but both depend on close comparison of shape and preservation.
Research published in 2026
Different teeth in the same jaw
The study of 167 isolated teeth from the Angeac turiasaur identifies five morphotypes linked to their position in the jaw. Comparative anatomy and 3D morphometrics work together to classify teeth and resolve ambiguous cases.
Clémence Le Gouellec, Ronan Allain, Jean Goedert, Romain Pintore, Jackson Carter, Rafael Royo-Torres, Dominique Augier and Raphaël Cornette, Journal of Anatomy, 2026.
Specimens and data
Tooth size and growth stage
These very small teeth are attributed to sauropod embryos or recently hatched young.
Enlarge each plate to examine labels, specimen identifiers and scale bars.
People and expertise
Romain Pintore, Raphaël Cornette and Alexandra Houssaye contribute to comparisons of bone shape. Research on turiasaur teeth also involves Clémence Le Gouellec and the co-authors of the 2026 study.
Further reading
Florent Goussard, “Comment ‘reconstruire’ un dinosaure en 3D ?”, Dinosaures, les géants du vignoble (2017), pp. 216–217.
- Variation in ornithomimosaur femora — Pintore, Cornette, Houssaye and Allain, 2023 →
- Anatomy and variation of turiasaur teeth — Le Gouellec and colleagues, 2026 →
Publications and results → · The book and its authors →
