And they're back!

See the fibers? It's basically a fossilized mat of roots. Not the coolest fossil, but it says
something about the ecology. Hey, I thought it was interesting...

Yep. We are past the dead week after a holiday and back into a normal feeling weekend. Had some interesting conversations with people in the Discovery Station (one involving faith and science. That's always interesting) and in the Rhino Barn, as always. One older man ran into me while I was in the visitor's center on my break, and decided he had more questions. My only complaint about this? There was a brownie waiting for me in the break room. And if there is one thing I like as much as ice cream, it is brownies. But, he asked good questions, he was satisfied, I (finally) satisfied my stomach, and I made it back to the Barn before my break was officially over. Success.

It's hard to see, but this is one of the burrows. You can tell
that it is something different because the texture is different,
mostly because other sediment filled in the hole in the ash.
Most of them I've found go straight down, but this one goes
kind of sideways.

So everyone's favorite question when they see me digging in the Rhino Barn is: "What did you find?" Well, seeing as I haven't found any bones yet, that takes a little bit of creativity to keep them from getting disappointed and bored. However, I keep running into burrows, which were made by scavengers trying to get to meat. Translation, there's a pretty good chance that I've been sitting on a rhino since I got here, especially considering the disassociated vertebrae nearby. Personally, seeing as this and the coprolites are the only evidence we have of the scavengers at the moment, I think they're pretty cool. You can even guess relatively accurately who made the hole based on the size and the animals that we know were around locally. I have about four in my area, one small enough to be a rodent and another big enough to be one of the really big canids. Maybe I should study trace fossils in graduate school, they'll tell quite a bit of the story. I've really enjoyed telling people about the ones that I have found, and then telling about the ones in other places and the other signs of scavenging, such as disarticulated bones and marks on the bones and such. Amusingly there was one burrow that was found last year, and when it was excavated it was found that the animal missed his intended meal by about 6 inches. I'd love to know how he missed and reacted to missing... 

When I showed the burrow in the picture above to Rick, I didn't get the paleo version of "Eureka!" Nope. I got "...that's weirder than the others." Why is it that no matter what I do in science, I get the "...that's weird..." Even in chemistry labs, I can follow the directions exactly and still I'm the one that the chemicals don't quite behave as expected for, and always I get "what did you do...." or "...huh. Weird." If only I had a nickle for every time I have confused a teacher, park ranger, TA, etc.... Well, I could at least pay my college tuition and maybe retire. To be honest though, that's more exciting in science than "THAT'S IT!!" because it means there are more questions to be answered, more discoveries to be made, and, frankly, job security because you still have more work to do. Still though. It's always me....

Now, another common question we get from little kids (and some adults) tends to be: "Where are the dinosaurs?" Oh. My. Gosh. That is one of the two pet peeves of paleontologists. That, and being called archaeologists. Everything that is bone isn't a dinosaur. I promise you that you have bones, and you are, unless I am mistaken, not a dinosaur. If you are, please contact your local paleontologist because you will change the course of science.

Anyway, that's enough sarcasm for one day. I was talking to one little boy who, like many, LOVES dinosaurs. OK, who doesn't? They're pretty cool. I heard him walk up to a cast of one of the rhinos that has every bone labelled and yell "DADDY! Come see! I found a dinosaur!" Just another day in the field.... I walked over, bent down to where I could talk to him, and said "Look, it's a mammal, like you! Have you ever been to the zoo?" No. Of course not... which explains why he didn't see it and think "RHINO!" So I went on about it being a mammal for a minute, and then something clicked. He pointed to the sticker that someone had given him in the visitors center and said "OH! Like this rhino!" I was so proud! Then we talked about whether it was a herbivore or a carnivore, and he guessed right like a good little boy, and I showed him how to tell it was a female based on the size of the tusks.

Oh, he liked that. "It's a mommy rhino!" he proudly told his dad.

Not sure whether it was, I picked up the laser pointer and asked him if he wanted to see the baby rhinos. For some reason I don't understand, the idea of these big animals being babies amazes the little kids. So we went over, found the rhino that the cast was a model of, and, sure enough, her baby was right next to her. Perfect.

But then it happened. He wanted to go see the cast that was closer to him than the babies. "Daddy, I want to go see the dinosaur!"

...at that point, I called it a day and returned to my square to continue working. I tried. Really, truly I tried. This is the point where we just point people to the heritage center where their kids can pretend to dig for fossils can call the rhino they find a dinosaur out of our ear shot. Sometimes, that's the best we've got...

Speaking of the zoo, I feel like I am always either behind bars or glass or a table here or anywhere else that I do this stuff. It's so weird feeling like part of the exhibit, and sometimes, when I see the flash of a camera behind me, I wonder how the animals in the zoo feel about not being asked to have their picture taken. Thank you very much to the courteous guests who ask us first.