Saturday, June 20, 2015

#Stokesosaurus

So apparently, in a part of the country that I don't spend a lot of time in (namely the Northern part where my fellow interns are from) there is a word that gets used. Not to profile the ENTIRE northern United States, as one is from California and one from Minnesota, but frankly this word never made it down to the southeast. On doing some research, I came to find out that it is a part of surfing language, so maybe Kaitlyn picked it up in Washington instead of Minnesota.

 Yes, I am a nerd and actually enjoy linguistics. Plus I wanted to make sure that I could say it without worrying about being offensive or something. So yes, I looked it up.

 Regardless, the word is "stoked." Meaning, basically, so excited that you don't know what to do with yourself anymore. This word quickly became a part of our everyday language at the quarry, especially in reference to over excited dinosaur loving children. "Man, that kid is so stoked!!" 

 Why am I talking about this in a paleontology blog, you may ask?
Well, Stokes was a very important paleontologist at this site. He was one of the men that really got scientists interested in the site. 

 Years later, when a new dinosaur was discovered, it was named Stokesosaurus clevelandii. "Stokes's Lizard" is a small tyrannosauroid, meaning he is a very, very distant and early relative of T. rex. Only a few of his bones are known; the type specimen basically consists of a partial pelvis that is so different from any other dinosaur at CLDQ that it merited a new name.

 It actually sat in collections for several decades before it was named, and then once it was prepped it took three more names before it was published. Because so little material has been found (though there is also a jaw bone suspected to be of the same dinosaur), there is a chance that it is a different age of another type of dinosaur found at the site. However, Stokesosaurus was the first name and will live on. It was named in honor of Stokes, long after he was no longer involved in the quarry.

 Off topic? Not really.

 Meet Stokosaurus, our mascot for the summer. There's no picture because honestly there is so little material (a hip and part of a jaw...) of him that I can't find a drawing of him that I trust as accurate.

  I never use "#", but when my pictures end up on Facebook (which eventually I plan for them to) they will be tagged as #Stokesosaurus.

 Because come on, what dinosaur could possibly be more stoked than this one?

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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.