ArticleRoyal Society open science2015
An advanced shape-fitting algorithm applied to quadrupedal mammals: improving volumetric mass estimates.
Article in Royal Society open science, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
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10 citing papers in PubMed.
- New perspectives on head and neck allometry and ecomorphology in tetrapods.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2026Review
- New perspectives on body size and shape evolution in dinosaurs.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2025Review
- Metabolic skinflint or spendthrift? Insights into ground sloth integument and thermophysiology revealed by biophysical modeling and clumped isotope paleothermometry.Journal of mammalian evolution · 2025Article
- A vibrating capillary for ultrasound rotation manipulation of zebrafish larvae.Lab on a chip · 2024Article
- The neck as a keystone structure in avian macroevolution and mosaicism.BMC biology · 2023Article
- Dual-fiber microfluidic chip for multimodal manipulation of single cells.Biomicrofluidics · 2021Article
- Ontogenetic changes in the body plan of the sauropodomorph dinosaur Mussaurus patagonicus reveal shifts of locomotor stance during growth.Scientific reports · 2019Article
- Alpha shapes: determining 3D shape complexity across morphologically diverse structures.BMC evolutionary biology · 2018Article
- The evolution of body size and shape in the human career.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2016Article
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2 authors.
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Abstract
Body mass is a fundamental physical property of an individual and has enormous bearing upon ecology and physiology. Generating reliable estimates for body mass is therefore a necessary step in many palaeontological studies. Whilst early reconstructions of mass in extinct species relied upon isolated skeletal elements, volumetric techniques are increasingly applied to fossils when skeletal completeness allows. We apply a new 'alpha shapes' (α-shapes) algorithm to volumetric mass estimation in quadrupedal mammals. α-shapes are defined by: (i) the underlying skeletal structure to which they are fitted; and (ii) the value α, determining the refinement of fit. For a given skeleton, a range of α-shapes may be fitted around the individual, spanning from very coarse to very fine. We fit α-shapes to three-dimensional models of extant mammals and calculate volumes, which are regressed against mass to generate predictive equations. Our optimal model is characterized by a high correlation coefficient and mean square error (r (2)=0.975, m.s.e.=0.025). When applied to the woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) and giant ground sloth (Megatherium americanum), we reconstruct masses of 3635 and 3706 kg, respectively. We consider α-shapes an improvement upon previous techniques as resulting volumes are less sensitive to uncertainties in skeletal reconstructions, and do not require manual separation of body segments from skeletons.
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