how does your work looking at fossils help animals today???

Question: how does your work looking at fossils help animals today???
- Keywords:
  application,
  current,
  fossil,
  research
Asked by anniew to Charlotte on 13 Jun 2012. This question was also asked by lhyland10.
- Charlotte Brassey answered on 13 Jun 2012:
  
  In a broader sense, I study the way that animals move around. For example, as the meat-eating dinosaurs (theropods, like T-rex) evolved into modern birds, the way they hold their thigh bone while they walk has changed. This means that modern birds have a really weird posture compared to modern mammals. And we need to understand why they have this posture, and how it affects the way they walk, if we are going to improve things like welfare for battery farmed chickens.

Question: how does your work looking at fossils help animals today???