A Singularly Stupid Deluge of Dinosaur Selfies

The town of Drumheller, Alberta is famous for being the home of the Royal Tyrrell Museum, a huge paleontology museum dedicated to the fossils of Canada (and beyond). There are lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of extinct chickens (aka dinosaurs) in Canada, so there are lots of dinos at the Royal Tyrrell, SO THERE ARE LOTS OF (really weird) DINOSAUR STATUES IN DRUMHELLER AND WE TOOK SELFIES WITH THEM ALL*!!!!!

Enjoy the photo montage of ridiculousness that ensues when two mammal paleontologists are vacationing in Canada. Or skip this post and come back in like 2-6 months when we finally write something new and/or meaningful again.

You know you want to see the rest of this dumbfuckery.

Road Trip Sum-Up

A few months ago Meaghan and her fiance Logan went down to Texas to hang out and fossil
hunt with Amy. It was pretty great, and if Meaghan wasn't working real real hard on her dissertation and also job hunting, she'd totally have written about it before this moment. So we apologize for the 3 month delay, especially since she's now going to give a bunch of road-trip tips and the price of gas has started going back up so that kind of sucks for you.

Fieldwork never looked so fun

The Glories of Collections-Based Research

Whenever I (Meaghan) tell other people that I'm a paleontologist, people tend to get really excited and ask one or both of the following two things:

First they ask if I've heard about the newest dinosaur fossil, which I never have but usually can bluff my way through with the sentence "oh right, isn't it the biggest one they've ever found, and it's from some country in South America or Asia or Africa or something?" because 90% of what dinosaur paleontologists in the media do is basically a prolonged, scientific dick-size competition that occurs in a foreign country my American friends consider jungle-ish.

The second thing they ask is if I get to do much field work, to which I throw back my head and cackle maniacally until the happy, excited gleam in their eye fades away and leaves nothing behind but the shallow husk of their dying inner seven-year-old.

Because no, I don't, and it's totally way better that way.

I know - it seems like it doesn't get much better than this right?*

Happy Birthday Mary!

It's Mary Annings birthday today and what a great day to celebrate! Meaghan and Amy are both doing SCIENCE on opposite ends of the country, and our interview with the paleo artist Ray Troll is coming soon!

Thanks to Ray Troll for scanning this image for us! This great portrait of Mary was first published in Troll's 1994 book Planet Ocean (check it out if you haven't already)

Want to learn more about the greatest fossil hunter who ever lived?! OF COURSE YOU DO!!!! Here are some quick links and books to explore more about Mary Anning and her incredible paleontological life in Lyme Regis, England:

--Our "Who was Mary Anning?" page on our blog

-- The biography "The Fossil Hunter" by Shelley Emling

-- The historical fiction novel "Remarkable Creatures" by Tracy Chevalier

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARY ANNING!!!