Scientists have developed a technique to perform dietary analysis of fish by analysing microscopic tooth wear.
The process, which involves taking moulds of the teeth similar to those a dentist might take, used focus variation microscopy to digitally capture details of the tooth surfaces, zooming in to an area just 1/7th of a mm in width, around the same as that of a human hair.
These 3D data allowed the researchers to distinguish between different diet by comparing the roughness and shape of the tooth surface on a tiny scale. This offers a new method to analyse fishes diet based on the fossil record.
The results are published today, 11th December 2015, in the journal Surface Topography: Metrology and Properties.