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Paleontology Stories; Tell Your Story Involving Prehistory
Topic Started: Jun 5 2016, 08:02 PM (185 Views)
Hovering Rabbit
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Well, this forum is for anyone who's dabbed into the field of paleontology, either by talking with paleontologists or being involved with fossils. I have a few stories so I'll explain:

Story #1: This was when I was around oh 13 or 14 years old (12 at the youngest) and I was in a small town fossil museum and discussion with the head of the museum. Then we got into a conversation about dinosaurs surviving the KT Event, and it boiled down to me asking the same question whenever he brought up proof (examples: a "human footprint" found next to a therapod footprint, Aztec paintings of dinosaurs, etc): "Isn't that controversial?" About 10 minutes into this debate, the head of the museum just walked off. My dad was ecstatic-he claimed that I pretty much won an argument over a "professional". Though given how he believes man and dinosaurs walked together, I can't call him a professional.

#2: During my junior year of high school, we had the opportunity to job shadow for whatever we wanted. Naturally, I wanted to job shadow a paleontologists-and to my surprise, I managed to get a behind the scenes tour of the paleontology side of the museum at the University of Iowa in Iowa City (I no longer live there, but I lived close to the city at the time). I managed to point out several animals immediately (from a cast skeleton of Dilong to brontothere skulls); I even got a picture with a life sized cast of a giant beaver skull. The best part was when I was talking to another paleontologist, one who specialized in synapsids. I mentioned a therocephalian that may have had a venomous bite; at first, the paleontologist didn't believe me, until she decided to go into a database where studies were posted; she managed to find an article mentioning grooves in the canines of a species known as Euchmbersia that may have connected with venom glands. The paleontologist was surprised-more so that a high school student knew about this when she didn't.

#3: This one's brief, but one of my dad's friends runs a small museum. It's mainly a history museum, but they did manage to find an odd rock that had peculiar markings on it. At first, they thought it was a "dinosaur bone", but they couldn't figure out for sure. When they got me to look at it, I noticed a series of rings inside the center of the rock-the best I can describe it is a banana shaped rock the color of chalk. I've heard that mammoth tusks have rings in the center that determines their age, so that's what I told the museum crew what I thought the rock was-a fossil of a mammoth tusk. Although to be honest, I could be wrong-it may as well have been some petrified wood too.

#4: This is my favorite story to tell. Me, my brother and my grandmother went to a fossil convention somewhere in Illinois, and I was talking up a storm about various prehistoric animals (even mentioning my theory of Dilophosaurus hunting behavior to two therapod specialists). One man was selling a cast replica of the skull of Gastornis for around $120, and I talked with the guy and my grandma about the bird for about 20 minutes before walking off. Apparently the guy was so impressed with my knowledge that he let my grandma buy it for only $80. She and my brother SOMEHOW managed to purchase it, sneak it into the car and keep it hidden from me until my birthday a few months later. Seeing that cast when I opened the package blew my mind-when my brother told me about it, I hugged him so hard I nearly fractured his back. Same with my grandma.



So if any of you have interesting stories involving paleontology, I'd love to hear them.
Loving Prehistoric Creatures, One Species at a Time
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Dapper Man
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I did find a fossil plant one time that dated to around 160-180 million years ago, and it didn't look to similar to other plants found in the local museum that I went to the next day. Maybe this was a new species? I don't know, as the person who I consulted had never seen something like it before. I haven't been to the place (Port Waikato) where it was found for a while now, but he did say that there was a private farm not to far from here where they had found possible Dinosaur bones there. I might go back to Port Waikato sometime in the next holidays to try my luck again. It was all down to luck, really.
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LittleLazyLass
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Just yesterday our substitute* science teacher brought in some plant fossils of hers. My best guess is Carboniferous, but she didn't know.

*Although honestly at this point it feels like we have her more than our actual homeroom.
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