Professor Mike Benton
B.Sc.(Aberd.), Ph.D.(N'cle)
Expertise
I work on large-scale evolution of major groups such as dinosaurs, and exploring the effects of mass extinctions, environmental change, and biological innovation on the evolution of reptiles, birds and mammals.
Current positions
Professor of Vertebrate Paleontology
School of Earth Sciences
Contact
Media contact
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Biography
Michael Benton was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 2014 for his fundamental contributions to understanding the history of life, particularly biodiversity fluctuations through time. He is fascinated by the transformation of palaeobiology from a speculative subject to testable science and led one of these discoveries – how to determine the colour of dinosaurs, rated as one of the top scientific discoveries of the 2010s. He works with fossils and rocks to interpret ancient environments, especially around the end-Permian mass extinction, the greatest loss of life on Earth, some 250 million years ago. He also works with fossils to build evolutionary trees and use them to date major events and rates and patterns of evolution, so helping us understand why some groups of animals are more successful than others. He is currently working on the Triassic, the time during which life recovered from the end-Permian mass extinction and when modern ecosystems arose; this was a time of arms races between major groups, and dinosaurs won. Michael Benton has written some 400 scientific papers and more than 50 books on a broad range of palaeontological topics. He has supervised more than 70 PhD students, and was founder of the Bristol MSc in Palaeobiology, which has welcomed 400 students since its foundation, in 1996. His latest books are new editions of the standard textbooks in palaeontology, Cowen’s History of Life (Wiley, 2019) and Introduction to Paleobiology and the Fossil Record (with David Harper, Wiley, 2020), as well as a presentation on the transition of palaeobiology from speculation to science over the past 30 years, Dinosaurs Rediscovered (Thames & Hudson, 2019, 2020).
Research interests
My interests include the diversification of life through time, quality of the fossil record, shapes of phylogenies, age-clade congruence, mass extinctions, Triassic ecosystem evolution, basal diapsid phylogeny, basal archosaurs and the origin of the dinosaurs.
Current research projects focus on (1) Innovation in the phylogeny of tetrapods, assessed by modelling the evolution of all tetrapods living and extinct against Earth history and biological trait data using state-of-the art phylogenetic comparative and Bayesian methods; (2) The end-Permian mass extinction, the greatest mass extinction of all time, and especially its effects on terrestrial organisms and their recovery from devastation; this involves fieldwork in Russia and China; (3) Exceptionally preserved Mesozoic vertebrate faunas from various locations.
Positions
University of Bristol positions
Professor of Vertebrate Paleontology
School of Earth Sciences
Projects and supervisions
Research projects
INNOVATION
Principal Investigator
Description
The core of the project is to construct a complete evolutionary tree of all 30,000 living species of tetrapods (amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals) and add the 10,000 fossil species; this…Managing organisational unit
School of Earth SciencesDates
01/10/2018 to 31/03/2024
The Newton Advanced Fellowship - Dr Qi Shao
Principal Investigator
Managing organisational unit
School of Earth SciencesDates
01/10/2016 to 30/09/2021
BETR UK-China collaborative programme
Principal Investigator
Managing organisational unit
School of Earth SciencesDates
01/01/2017 to 31/12/2020
Evolution of feathers and colours in birds and dinosaurs
Principal Investigator
Managing organisational unit
School of Earth SciencesDates
01/09/2012 to 31/12/2017
The Bristol Dinosaur Project
Principal Investigator
Description
A research and outreach project, funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund.
The Bristol Dinosaur Project focuses on the conservation and preparation of numerous bones of Thecodontosaurus antiquus (the Bristol Dinosaur), these…Managing organisational unit
School of Earth SciencesDates
31/03/2010 to 31/12/2013
Thesis supervisions
Patterns and dynamics of palaeozoic marine biodiversification
Supervisors
The effect of the Permian mass extinction on shark faunas
Supervisors
The evolution of the avian brain
Supervisors
Kuehneotherium from the Mesozoic fissure fillings of South Wales
Supervisors
The macroevolution and macroecology of Mesozoic lepidosaurs
Supervisors
Ichthyosaurs of the British Middle & and Upper Jurassic & and the Evolution of Ichthyosaurs
Supervisors
Macroevolution of the Crocodylomorpha
Supervisors
Effects of environmental perturbation during the Late Triassic on the taxic diversity of British insects
Supervisors
The evolution of ceratopsians
Supervisors
Macroevolution of early tetrapods
Supervisors
Publications
Recent publications
23/03/2021Niche partitioning shaped herbivore macroevolution through the early Mesozoic
Nature Communications
Ecomorphological diversification of squamates in the Cretaceous
Royal Society Open Science
Testing for a dietary shift in the Early Cretaceous ceratopsian dinosaur Psittacosaurus lujiatunensis
Palaeontology
Environmental Drivers of body size evolution in crocodile-line archosaurs
150 million years of sustained increase in pterosaur flight efficiency
Nature
Teaching
Field mapping
Macroevolution
Vertebrate Palaeontology & Biomechanics