How do you get into palaeontology?

This remains one of the questions I am asked (or the variant of how did I get into palaeontology) by people I meet when they find out what I do. My answer is very simple, but will also give a longer version from other people's experiences and suggestions if people or parents of kids want to know their options.

Unlike many people, I have always wanted to do what I am doing (if you ignore my very first few years of my life when I wanted to be Noah, but that hinted my early interest in all the animals). From what I can remember (and I am sure my parents have a slightly different version), when I was about 4 getting given a book on dinosaurs from my uncle on dinosaurs and my fascination grew from there. An aunt, who lives down in Dorset, took me to the Jurassic Coast shortly thereafter and I found my first fossils. Lots of belemnites.

Belemnites, loads and loads of them. Image from https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6e/BelemnitesJurassicWyoming.jpg

I was hooked. Over the years, I dragged my family repeatedly to the Jurassic Coast where I would eventually find crinoids and ammonites. It wasn't just England though. Every place my family went on holidays, my parents, where possible found places for me to go look at or find my own fossils and rocks. Even if they weren't planned I was still looking at the ground, e.g. when my dad ran the Washington DC marathon, I was collecting quartz crystals by the side of the road instead of cheering him on. I did a science heavy set of GCSEs, and the three sciences and maths at A levels. I applied for a bunch of courses that I thought might get me towards palaeontology ultimately, whether it was Natural Sciences at Cambridge, Geology at a few of the London Universities, and Palaeontology and Evolution at Bristol. I ended up at Bristol, where I did my undergraduate, and had accepted a PhD. I got to go out on a "proper dig" with the Museum of the Rockies that summer. 2 weeks digging up a Triceratops and it was certain that there was nothing else for me. 3 1/4 years of a PhD continuing research looking at ornithomimosaurs led to my current postdoc. 2.5 years through it, I now get to go through the stress of looking for my next postdoc/job but that is for another time.

So for people interested in getting into palaeontology, how do you go about it?

Academic
This is the most important of all requirements for modern palaeontologists. There are undoubtedly exceptions (e.g. Jack Horner) who never went to university, but the field has come a long way and everyone has at least a masters level degree, and most have PhDs. This is definitely a requirement as for the academic route into palaeontology (preparators generally require less academic degrees, but much more experience to get a job). As such be prepared for a commitment on the same level as medical doctors in terms of time at university. Before you get there, the focus is heavily on sciences. For A levels, there is a focus particularly on chemistry and biology required for university, and knowledge of maths and physics is incredibly useful. Surprisingly geology is not required! As for degrees at university, I know people who have gone through biological sciences, zoology, geology and natural sciences at various universities. Importantly, it will be picking topics and projects that are palaeontology related throughout the degree that will set you up better for masters or PhDs which are looking for specific experience in those areas.

Volunteer
This applies at any and all levels really. If you are enthusiastic about it, do some research into who is doing work in the things you are interested in. Most large universities have geology or biology departments with at least one palaeontologist. Even if there isn't a palaeontologist, there is probably someone doing evolution based studies that would be worth contacting to see if they have volunteer projects. Museums are much the same. In Bristol, I know several summer projects ended up as publications. Remember, for university applications, they are looking for people who are passionate about what they are doing, and for higher degrees you need to be able to show this. If you are interested in doing field work, most large US and Canadian universities and museums do field work every year and often are looking for enthusiastic volunteers. The best ones you shouldn't have to pay for besides transport to the site and back.

Read
It doesn't have to be scientific papers, but that does help. Read the news, find the palaeontology stories (the BBC science has lots but there are other sources out there). If there are stories you want to read the science, look for the paper. Some are open access so anyone can read. If they aren't, contact the author. Usually they are very happy to share their papers. If not, Facebook has groups that share papers, and there are places like researchgate.net and academia.edu that may also have them. You may also be able to find them on places like Sci-Hub but there are ongoing copyright cases associated with that source.

Get into the field
Something that I've said many times previously, and am incredibly passionate about, go look for fossils! In the UK there are loads of amateur groups that go collecting, great websites for finding out where to go and what to look for and even guided trips (e.g. UKAFH). I suspect there are many such groups in every country. Not all palaeontologists are field palaeontologists, but it helps if you can put fossils into geological contexts which you can only get by going into the field.

If you are a parent and you kids love fossils
All I can do is encourage you to encourage your children. Take them to museums. Take them fossil hunting. Most kids grow out of their dinosaur phase. Some of us don't. Even if your kids grow out of the phase, many people maintain that fascination in dinosaurs and may develop other useful things like reading news/science, a love of the outdoors, or just be incredibly grateful that you didn't force them to do something just because you thought science/palaeontology doesn't pay well. You can make a living from it, and many do. It isn't an easy career, and there is undoubtedly a long time in university, and a long time after where you have 1-5 year contracts and a lack of stability. The support of my parents let me do what I love, and made it a lot easier every step of the way.

At the end of the day there is no "right" way to get into palaeontology. There is no time limit, no restrictions on when you must study palaeontology. If you love it, go for it.

International Congress of Vertebrate Morphology

I've just returned to work after a fabulous conference, the International Congress of Vertebrate Morphology (ICVM) 2016 in Washington DC. It was an incredibly busy week, a combination of a long travel (via Iceland) and lots of great talks. In fact, it was 4.5 days of talks, with all starting off with some high profile speakers leading the way with plenaries, then 6 simultaneous sessions so there was something for everyone going on nearly all the time (and sometimes too much at once so things were inevitably missed).

I was pleased to get the opportunity to present my work on how cat muscles scale as well as how we can use these data to reconstruct fossil taxa (in this case Panthera atrox - the North American lion, and Smilodon fatalis - sabretooth "tiger") and their soft tissues, and implications this has for the biomechanical reconstructions (keep an eye out for this paper which is currently in review).

Convex hull model of P. atrox based on musculoskeletal reconstructions.

In addition to my own work, it was great seeing all of the talks of past and present lab mates (and there are now a lot from the three big groups across the universities). Their works span everything from pterosaurs, birds, cats, dinosaurs, mammals, and fish.

There were some particular highlights though amongst the rest of the science:

• The suggestion that sperm whales only have dentition on their lower jaw may be linked to helping lure squid using bioluminescence on the teeth.

• The entire diceCT (sounding like dice CT, rather than dissect) symposium showing how you can obtain and utilise iodine to contrast enhance CT scanning to produce spectacular images of soft tissues in small animals (they are working on bigger animals, but diffusion is a pain without over-saturating the edges) and their utility for understanding anatomy, function and reconstructing soft tissues. Check out the website for more!

From Gignac et al., 2016 showing diceCT utility for contrast enhanced CT scanning.

• Casey Holliday and colleagues continue to produce some of the most amazing histology slices of cranial joint morphologies across reptiles and archosaurs (besides the jaw joint). Not only incredibly important in terms of defining what is and isn't a joint, but realising that all the groups do it differently. And I would happily put some of their cross-sections on my wall as art as they are gorgeous.

Best I can offer until the publications come out. From Holliday lab page.

• There were interesting talks on reconstructing jaw musculature, particularly one on how ornithischian "cheeks" are probably just a more anterior insertion of some of the muscles on the lower jaw.

• I enjoyed finding out that sloth vertebral muscles are the same as "right way up" terrestrial vertebrates.

• Seeing that reconstruction of Spinosaurus floating around quite happily (a different result to that presented at SVP which had it unable to float upright and tipping onto its side). However, T. rex also floats happily (as long as its head is up) so if that Spinosaurus reconstruction is correct and not just a rubbish, short-legged, chimeric reconstruction (personal opinion), it still isn't special in its aquatic abilities.

There are there are many more talks deserving of recognition, including those I was unable to attend as I was in other talks (I'm told there was one on chameleons producing infrasonic sounds and being able to hear them with their feet which sounded amazing). There were also the usual high quality selection of posters spanning the entirety of topics and groups from the talks sessions that were up the entire conference allowing people to browse at their leisure.

Other things I also really enjoyed:

• All talk rooms were the same size so their was no indication to which were expected to be the most popular (e.g. dinosaurs at SVP). The downside is some very popular sessions were very crowded, but I don't believe I saw a single session with every seat filled.

• Selections of food and drinks available at the coffee breaks. Whilst it may not sound like much, I don't drink tea or coffee so it was nice having something to drink besides water during the coffee breaks.

• I also attended the end of the business meeting for the conference discussing to get an insight into the workings of it, seeing the next president and committee members being elected, and hearing that the next ICVM is in either Glasgow or Prague (I'm hoping for Prague). A sneak preview that that year SVP is in Australia too so an exciting year of conferences awaits! 

I got to personally thank Larry Witmer for all his work and for being such a great meeting, but again I would like to thank the host committee and everyone who organised ICVM 2016. Barcelona was great 3 years ago, but DC was even better. Looking forward to 2019 and seeing what that ICVM brings!


Reference
Gignac et al., 2016. Diffusible iodine-base contrast enhanced computed tomography (diceCT): an emerging tool for rapid, high-resolution, 3-D imaging of metazoan soft tissues. Journal of Anatomy 228, 889-909.

Manuscripts: reviews, rejections and acceptance

I am still a very early career academic being only two and a bit years through my first postdoctorate (and 5.5 years on from the start of my PhD). As such I don't have the ability to write an amazing CV of failures like Johannes Haushofer did that hit the news recently. However, it did inspire me to go through my publication list and my record of revisions I've had to help remind early researchers and PhD students it's not all bad.

Papers:
2009

• Diversity of chondrichthyans since the K-Pg mass extinction. Reject with lots of corrections Palaeontology. Sadly I never found the time to get back around to it as it was a literature review as part of my undergraduate third year and would require more work and time than I had to learn the techniques. A PhD project on the topic appeared during my time as a PhD but I remain unsure what happened to it.

2011

• Feeding Mechanics in Spinosaurid Theropods and Extant Crocodilians. Major corrections at PLoS one (functionally a rejection)

2012

• Feeding Mechanics in Spinosaurid Theropods and Extant Crocodilians. Major corrections at PLoS one (functionally a rejection)

2013

• Feeding Mechanics in Spinosaurid Theropods and Extant Crocodilians. Minor revisions and then accept in PLoS one.
• Validation of a finite element model of an ostrich (Struthio camelus) skull. Reject with encouragement to resubmit Journal of Anatomy

2014

• Functional anatomy and feeding biomechanics of a giant Upper Jurassic pliosaur (Reptilia: Sauropterygia) from Weymouth Bay, Dorset, UK. Reject from Proc. Royal Soc. B. Minor, minor then accept at Journal of Anatomy.
• Complex rostral neurovascular system in a giant pliosaur. Minor corrections and accept Naturwissenschaften.
• Validation of a finite element model of an ostrich (Struthio camelus) skull. Reject and don't resubmit Journal of Anatomy.

2015

• Big cat, small cat: reconstructing body size evolution in living and extinct Felidae. Reject and accept Journal of Evolutionary Biology.
• Retrodeformation and muscular reconstruction of ornithomimosaurian dinosaur crania. Major, major  and accept PeerJ.
• Validation experiments on finite element models of an ostrich (Struthio camelus) cranium. Major and accept PeerJ.
• Cryptic complexity in felid vertebral evolution: shape differentiation and allometry of the axial skeleton. Reject, minor Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society.
• The scaling of forelimb, cervical and thoracic muscles across cats (Felidae). Major Journal of Anatomy
• The scaling of hindlimb and lumbosacral muscles in cats (Felidae). Major Journal of Anatomy
• The endocranial morphology of the extinct North American lion (Panthera atrox). Major Scientific Reports.
• New record of Egertonia (Elopiformes, Phyllodontidae) from the Late Cretaceous of South India. Moderate, accept Papers in Palaeontology. (Only out in 2016 though)

2016

• Cryptic complexity in felid vertebral evolution: shape differentiation and allometry of the axial skeleton. Accept Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society
• The scaling of postcranial muscles in cats (Felidae) I: forelimb, cervical, and thoracic muscles. Accept Journal of Anatomy
• The scaling of postcranial muscles in cats (Felidae) II: hindlimb and lumbosacral muscles. Accept Journal of Anatomy.

So there you have the list so far. 30 decisions, 10 publications and 1 dead paper. The longest time between submission and acceptance was the ostrich validation, first submitted 26  August 2013, published 13 October 2015. For those of you counting that is 2 years, 1.5 months or 778 days. In that time, there were reviews that took 3 months and 4 months which is ridiculously long especially to just get rejected. It was good data, just wasn't the for the journal as the results were negative.

What have I learnt from all of it?

1. Publishing remains an enigma. In some ways it gets easier with experience, in others it never does. Your publications are your work, and it is always a little hard when you think you've done an amazing piece of work to get back reviews saying you've got lots to do. My spinosaur paper had pages of revisions! At the same time you get used to it, and with experience paper writing gets easier so generally there are fewer corrections as you avoid falling into the same pitfalls, and the time to turn around revisions decreases even with major corrections.
2. Reviewers, whilst the bane of my publishing, are very good at making sure the science is good and the methods are up to scratch. Sometimes they get things wrong or miss things, but for the most part they give incredibly useful suggestions that will improve your paper. Listen to them.
3. Reviewer two always seems to always dislike my papers...
4. Reviews should only take 1-2 months. I've had some really short ones that are returned within a month (PeerJ was 3 weeks normally) and some shockingly long reviews (see above 3-4 months), but after about two months you are well within your rights to chase it up.
1. A follow on from this is that if you are unhappy how long reviewers are taking, you can't be fussy and turn down the chance to review for journals (assuming you are qualified to review the paper). I have now reviewed for PLoS one and Naturwissenschaften, two of the journals I've published with.
2. I also remain unsure why I seem to acquire 3 reviewers regularly for papers when 2 normally suffices.
5. If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Whether it's revisions, refocussing, or sending to a different journal where your paper might be better suited. In the case of the ostrich validation paper, it needed to go to a journal that accepted negative results.
6. Some journals have really harsh standards for what constitutes reject, major and minor corrections. I've never had such minor corrections as I did for the Big cat, small cat paper, but that was a rejection, and similarly minor corrections for the muscle scaling papers were major corrections. This is never personal, but I'm informed sometimes the decisions to reject are made to keep the journal's time between submission and acceptance down (as a resubmission from a reject resets the clock). It's annoying, but the quicker you turn around corrections, the quicker you get it back into review.

"Publish or Perish" remains an awful motto of academia due to the never ending requirements to keep publishing, and this being the standard to which most academics are judged. It is something that gets easier and the longer you spend in academia the more avenues for collaboration and publication appear (I think at any point in the last 2 years I've had at least four papers on the go, with up to 7 at one point). I was told during my MSci that any work you really are doing at that point you want to be trying to publish and ultimately that helps guide ongoing work and decide on what future work I do. At the end of it saying all of that, find what enthuses you, what works for you, and get on with it!