Kate Trinajstic

Professor Kate Trinajstic or Katherine M. Trinajstic is an Australian palaeontologist, evolutionary biologist, and winner of the Dorothy Hill Award. She is the Dean of Research, Faculty of Science and Engineering at Curtin University.

Quotes

• "In the limestone ranges of Western Australia’s Kimberley region, near the town of Fitzroy Crossing, you’ll find one of the world’s best-preserved ancient reef complexes."
• "Here lie the remnants of myriad prehistoric marine animals, including placoderms, a prehistoric class of fish that represents some of our earliest jawed ancestors."
  • We found the oldest ever vertebrate fossil heart. It tells a 380 million-year-old story of how our bodies evolved. Kate Trinajstic & John Long, Published: September 15, 2022. THE CONVERSATION, Retrieved: 23, November 2023.
• "If all jawed vertebrates, including humans, are nothing more than highly evolved placoderms, then key features of ourselves should be traceable to structures that first appeared in our fishy placoderm ancestors. This would include particular jaw and skull bones and the proportions of our face and brain."
• "Imagine trying to identify and compare equivalent bits of anatomy shared between an oyster, a beetle and a blue whale. That is essentially the problem we face with early vertebrate fossils."
  • Our ideas about vertebrate evolution challenged by a new tree of life. Benedict King, John Long & Mike Lee, Published: December 5, 2016. THE CONVERSATION, Retrieved: 21, November 2023.