A Young Paleontologist Goes Viral
Hello! It’s been a long year since you heard from me. Since you heard from me last, I moved to a new city (Boston!), had a baby (who now turned 1 year old), started a new job (Suffolk University!), bought a house (#adulting) and moved again. I’m finally able to make time for DrNeurosaurus again, so hopefully I still have some readers out there.
We’ve missed a lot of great news in the past year:
- Baby pterosaurus, or [‘flaplings’] were probably able to fly
- [Feathers] evolved way earlier than we had imagined
- The head of a [wolf] was found in Siberia dating to 30,000 years ago, and it almost looks like it could be sleeping
- A new bat-winged dinosaur: [Ambopteryx]
- And many more!
Sadly I don’t have the time to review all of these, so instead today we’re going to talk about a young paleontologist from India.
She recently went viral on social media as the youngest paleontologist from India, so you may have heard of her. Her name is Aswatha Biju and she’s just 12 years old. At 5 years old, she saw a picture of an ammonite in an encyclopedia and her interest in paleontology took off. Her parents brought her to the [Egmore Museum] where she could see ammonites and other fossils and she kept wanting to go back.
From there, she started learning more about fossils and paleontology. She visited places where she could collect fossils and now has over 70! She’s become such an expert in Indian paleontology that she’s been invited to give seminars at schools and universities. Aswatha is well on her way to becoming one of the most knowledgeable paleontologists about Indian fossils.
You can read more about her story at [The Better India].