Sunday, July 27, 2014

Discovery of the year!

Unfortunately, not my find, and not bone, but its so cool that its worth a post.

There are dog prints in the ash layer, and the first of their kind that we've found. Unfortunately, can't show a picture. We're used to just seeing these animal's coprolites and borrows, but finally, finally, we found tracks. We're still crossing our fingers for another skeleton...

There is one carnivore in the ash bed so far. It's this guy. He's a little raccoon-sized dog that wouldn't have been able to burrow and thus escape the bad air around him like the larger predators could have. Mike likes to tell people that we are ahead of the game, because normally you find 1 predator for every 100 prey animals of a similar size, and we have 50 individuals in the ash. That being said, this little guy is... well, little, and that doesn't count the fact that we also found 200 full skeletons in the National Geographic quarry... by that ratio, we should have 2.5 predators of similar size to the rhinos. Plus, we know that there are more skeletons to be uncovered. I'll generously assume this guy had a good appetite and call him the 1/2. There was enough here to support two more, and surely at least one of those didn't make it away from the ash.

He's out there.

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My Story (Very briefly...)

Lots of people claim that they wanted to be paleontologists at the age of 3. So did I. The problem is, I never really grew out of it. My third birthday party had dinosaurs. Everywhere. I grew up digging in fossil dirt from Aurora, NC, looking for coral and shark teeth. I practically lived at my local science museums (and still do, only now I get to do research, fossil preparation, and work in collections!) When local paleontologists discovered a dinosaur with a "fossilized heart" (no longer considered such) when I was little, I got to meet the man who led the work. And then, years later a dinosaur bone with soft tissue turned up. I was officially hooked.
No longer was I dreaming about dinosaurs. I was actively pursuing the science behind prehistoric creatures. I didn't want to read about it, I wanted in on the action. So I started working at the museum, and finally going on my own adventures. And thus, I needed a place to share them and maybe inspire others the way I was inspired. I have gone from watching fossils be prepared from one side of the glass at the museum to working on them on the inside of the glass. I am a student working toward my goal. I can finally start to call myself a paleontologist.