Palaeontologist

How did our young scientists get interested in the natural world?

Andy Ross - Palaeontologist

A palaeontologist studies fossils.

What made you want to be a palaeontologist?

I have been interested in fossils since I was five years old. I remember finding ammonites in a streambed near to where I lived in Northampton, and my father regularly took me to an old quarry that had been turned into a country park, where you could find brachiopods, a type of marine invertebrate. Like all children I was mad about dinosaurs.

I was also interested in insects and I regularly brought home caterpillars that I fed and kept until they metamorphosed into adult moths and butterflies and then I let them go. This was a great background to my job as Curator of Fossil Arthropods.

What advice would you give anyone wanting to be a palaeontologist?

The best way to start is to collect fossils. Join a local geological society which will regularly lead field trips to collect fossils. You'll be shown what to look for and be given help to identify the fossils that you find. Or, you can bring your fossil to the Museum's Earth Lab and try to identify it for yourself.

Ask an adult for a fossil book for your birthday or Christmas that will tell you lots more about fossils. The more books you read the more of an expert you will become.

It's important that you write a label for each fossil you find saying what it is and where you found it so you don't forget. It's also good to stick numbers on the specimens and keep a record of them.

What subjects at school were you best at?

I wasn't best at any one subject, I got average grades at 'O' level (now GCSEs) for maths, english, chemistry, physics, computing, technical drawing and metalwork. Surprisingly, I failed biology, the one subject I wanted to do well in. This did not hold me back and I went on to do 'A' level biology, geology and chemistry (though I failed the chemistry). I then did a degree in geology and later a PhD on fossil cockroaches.

If you want something badly enough, your determination, knowledge and enthusiasm will take you further than just qualifications.

What's the best thing about being a palaeontologist?

The best thing by far is finding fossils. When you break open a rock and find a fossil, you know you are the first person ever to see it. The more fossil collecting trips you go on, the better you get at finding them. The more you read about fossils the more knowledge you gain and the more scientific names you'll learn.

The best thing for me now is when I look through the collections at the Museum and come across specimens that haven't yet been studied properly before and realise they are new species.

What's the worst thing about being a palaeontologist?

Unfortunately now that I'm a professional palaeontologist, I have to write yearly reports. This can be boring and I'd rather be looking at fossils.

What's the most exciting thing you've found, discovered or researched?

When I was 18, while doing my degree, I went on a field trip to a coal tip and found a 10 centimetre long fossil insect wing that was 300 million years old. I thought it was a dragonfly wing but was told by an expert that it was a palaeodictyopteran.

A what? Palaeodictyoptera are an extinct group of insects that only lived during the Carboniferous and Permian periods. They look a bit like dragonflies except they have a pointed beak for piercing seeds, whereas dragonflies have biting jaws to eat other insects.

What's your favourite fossil?

Lithomantis brongniarti. This is a 300-million-year-old palaeodictyopteran wing from Shropshire. It was found 180 years ago and was the first fossil insect known from the Palaeozoic era. Gideon Mantell named the species in 1839. Mantell was famous for discovering Iguanodon, one of the first known dinosaurs.

What's your favourite thing on display in the Museum?

It has to be the large slab of rock set in the wall of 'From the Beginning' that shows two large eurypterids of the species Pterygotus anglicus (400 million years old) from Scotland. Eurypterids are an extinct group of arthropods that lived in the sea, commonly called sea scorpions. Pterygotus reached two metres in length and is the largest aquatic arthropod ever to have lived. It was a vicious predator with large pincers that it used to catch fish.

Also in 'From the Beginning' are three nice fossil insects.

What's your favourite website about palaeontology?

The website of the Arthropoda Laboratory, Moscow has a lot if information about fossil insects.

What's your favourite book about palaeontology

It has to be Peter Brodie's book on 'A history of the fossil insects in the secondary rocks of England' published in 1845, which is the only book ever to be published on British fossil insects. For budding palaeontologists, Richard Fortey's book 'Fossils, The Key to the Past' is good. The books on Palaeozoic, Mesozoic and Cainozoic fossils published by the Museum are also very good and essential for all fossil collectors.

Are there any clubs or societies that young people can join or go to if they want to take their interest further?

Rockwatch is a national club for young palaeontologists and geologists.

What would you do if you weren't a palaeontologist?

I also enjoyed computer games while at school, so perhaps I would have been a computer games programmer or tester.

Further info

Earth lab datasite Fossil info From the Beginning gallery Visit us Museum bookshop

External links

Rockwatch Arthropoda Laboratory, Moscow

Glossary - what does that word mean?

Marine invertebrate – those animals that live in the sea and lack a vertebral column (a spine). Therefore in order to protect themselves, they usually have a shell or a hard exo skeleton but not always!

Metamorphosis – in biology this means a change in the shape of an animal as it grows up. For example in insects, the change of a maggot into an adult fly and a caterpillar into a butterfly and in amphibians the changing of a tadpole into a frog.

Geology – the science and study of rocks, the earth's history, make-up, and structure.

Arthropods – invertebrates with jointed legs which includes insects, spiders, millipedes and centipedes, and crustaceans (crabs, lobsters shrimps, barnacles and woodlice).

Predator – a predator hunts and kills for food.