Takuya Konishi, PhD

Welcome to VPA@UC! My name is Takuya Konishi, an assistant professor-educator at the University of Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. I am a vertebrate paleontologist by training, and I teach Human/Comparative Anatomy at the Department of Biological Sciences here @ UC. The more I teach comparative anatomy, the more I realize the importance of careful observations of vertebrate morphologies in order to understand the biology of animals, both living and long extinct. Look at these magnificent whale skeletons above, exhibited at Muséum national d'histoire naturelle in Paris. Then pretend that you've never seen whales before, and ask yourself the following questions: how can I tell if these skeletons belong to (1) fully aquatic, (2) air-breathing vertebrates that (3) nurse their young? What do they eat and how do they interact with each other, their prey, and their predators? These typify questions we investigate as we also look for better tools to tackle them with, happening right here at VPA@UC!