Natalia Rybczynski is a Canadian paleobiologist,

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

and

researcher Research is creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge. It involves the collection, organization, and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular attentiveness to ...

. She is a research scientist with the

Canadian Museum of Nature The Canadian Museum of Nature (; CMN) is a national museums of Canada, national natural history museum based in Canada's National Capital Region (Canada), National Capital Region. The museum's exhibitions and public programs are housed in the Vi ...

and holds a professorship at

Carleton University Carleton University is an English-language public university, public research university in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Founded in 1942 as Carleton College, the institution originally operated as a private, non-denominational evening college to se ...

Ottawa Ottawa is the capital city of Canada. It is located in the southern Ontario, southern portion of the province of Ontario, at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the cor ...

Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...

. Her doctorate was obtained at

Duke University Duke University is a Private university, private research university in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity, North Carolina, Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1 ...

and her main interests are evolutionary functional morphology, particularly at the polar climes. Rybczynski is notable for having discovered a previously unknown carnivorous arctic mammal, a proto-seal, which represents a "missing link" between land-dwelling mammals and modern day ocean-going seals. '' Puijila darwini'' was discovered in 2007 on

Devon Island Devon Island (, ) is an island in Canada and the largest desert island, uninhabited island (no permanent residents) in the world. It is located in Baffin Bay, Qikiqtaaluk Region, Nunavut, Canada. It is one of the largest members of the Arctic Ar ...

in the Canadian arctic. Discovery of this specimen was announced in the journal ''Nature'' in April 2009. She has also contributed to the understanding of the biomechanics of ''

Suminia ''Suminia'' is an extinct genus of basal anomodont that lived during the Tatarian age of the late Permian, spanning approximately from 268–252 Ma.Rybczynski N. 2000. Cranial anatomy and phylogenetic position of Suminia getmanovi, a basal anomod ...

'', a primitive mammal thought to exhibit early evidence of teeth and jaw structure specialized for chewing. Her discovery of a fossil

tibia The tibia (; : tibiae or tibias), also known as the shinbone or shankbone, is the larger, stronger, and anterior (frontal) of the two Leg bones, bones in the leg below the knee in vertebrates (the other being the fibula, behind and to the outsi ...

of a High Arctic camel was featured in a November 2015

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given by

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producer Latif Nasser. Rybczynski is also known for her work comparing the teeth and wood chips of modern beavers with the fossilized teeth and fossilized wood chips of a relative of the modern beaver

Dipoides ''Dipoides'' is an extinct genus of beaver-grouped rodents. ''Dipoides'' were approximately three to four times larger than modern Canadian beavers - ranging from 90 - 120KG. Where modern beavers have square chisel shaped teeth, ''Dipoides'' te ...

. Most members of the genus Castor weren't aquatic, and didn't dine on wood, but Rybczynski concluded Dipoides was aquatic, dined on wood like modern beavers, and built dams like modern beavers. She concluded Dipoides and modern beavers shared a common ancestor approximately 24 million years ago. She is the niece of writer and architect

Witold Rybczynski Witold Rybczynski (born 1 March 1943) is a Canadian American architect, professor and writer. He is currently the Martin and Margy Meyerson Professor Emeritus of Urbanism at the University of Pennsylvania. Early life Rybczynski was born in E ...

Selected publications

* Fraser, Danielle, et al.
Mean Annual Precipitation Explains Spatiotemporal Patterns of Cenozoic Mammal Beta Diversity and Latitudinal Diversity Gradients in North America
" PLoS ONE 9.9 (2014): e106499. * Eberle, Jaelyn J., Natalia Rybczynski, and David R. Greenwood. "Early Eocene mammals from the Driftwood Creek beds, Driftwood Canyon Provincial Park, northern British Columbia." Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 34.4 (2014): 739-746. * Fraser, Danielle, and Natalia Rybczynski. "Complexity of ruminant masticatory evolution." Journal of morphology (2014). *Rybczynski, N., Gosse, J. C., Harington, C. R., Wogelius, R. A., Hidy, A. J., and Buckley, M. (2013). "Mid-Pliocene warm-period deposits in the High Arctic yield insight into camel evolution". Nature Communications 4 (1550): 1550. * Rybczynski, Natalia, Mary R. Dawson, and Richard H. Tedford. "A semi-aquatic Arctic mammalian carnivore from the Miocene epoch and origin of Pinnipedia." Nature 458.7241 (2009): 1021-1024. * Rybczynski, Natalia, and Robert R. Reisz. "Earliest evidence for efficient oral processing in a terrestrial herbivore." Nature 411.6838 (2001): 684-687. * Rybczynski, Natalia. Cranial morphology and phylogenetic significance of Suminia getmanovi, a Late Permian anomodont from Russia. 1997. * Rybczynski, Natalia, et al. "A three-dimensional animation model of Edmontosaurus (Hadrosauridae) for testing chewing hypotheses." Palaeontologia Electronica 11 (2008): 14. * Rybczynski, Natalia. "Castorid phylogenetics: implications for the evolution of swimming and tree-exploitation in beavers." Journal of Mammalian Evolution 14.1 (2007): 1-35. * Ballantyne, A. P., et al. "Pliocene Arctic temperature constraints from the growth rings and isotopic composition of fossil larch." Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 242.3 (2006): 188-200. * Rybczynski, Natalia. "Cranial anatomy and phylogenetic position of Suminia getmanovi, a basal anomodont (Amniota: Therapsida) from the Late Permian of Eastern Europe." Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 130.3 (2000): 329-373.

References

External links

referencing Rybczynski {{DEFAULTSORT:Rybczynski, Natalia Living people 21st-century Canadian biologists Canadian paleontologists Canadian people of Polish descent Canadian women academics Academic staff of Carleton University Duke University alumni Paleobiologists Canadian women biologists Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century Canadian women scientists Canadian women paleontologists