How To Be... a Paleontologist

Okay, who didn't see this one coming?

My love of dinosaurs began around the age of 3 or 4 when I saw this:

Or something like that. I don't actually remember other than that it was a big dinosaur over a gas station. I was fascinated and spent, basically, the next 10 years of my life devoted to the study of dinosaurs. Just so you know, this is my favorite:

In case you don't know, that's a Triceratops. I think my love for them probably grew out of my early childhood perception that they were capable of taking on a T. Rex, which is true. There was actually a fossil found of a T. Rex and Triceratops locked in combat. As far as I know, they don't know if something killed them while they fighting (like a volcano) or if they just killed each other. It's still pretty cool.

The thing is, and I didn't know this when I was a kid, paleontology is more than just dinosaurs. It's the study of all prehistoric life. And, um, rocks. Okay, paleontologists don't study rocks, but you have to study rocks to get to paleontology. In fact, paleontology is most often within a university's geology department if it offers any kind of paleontological studies at all.

The real issue with paleontology is that it is just broad heading for many different specialties. So you have paleobiology, which is the specific branch that most often deals with dinosaurs. And you have icnology and paleobotany and invertebrate paleontology and vertebrate paleontology and micropaleontology and, even, paleogenetics. And that's not all of them, but I ran out of breath.

Paleogenetics is pretty interesting, especially if you remember this post. (They say) Paleogenetics is not for the re-creation of actual organisms, but it is theoretically possible, and they do work on recreating DNA sequences. AND there have already been attempts to clone a mammoth through recovered DNA in Japan. They still say they can do it. Suddenly, Jurassic Park doesn't seem so far-fetched.

Basically, it kind of doesn't matter so much what you're into, there's probably a paleo field for it. I mean, heck, there's even a paleo diet going around now.
Me? I'm still just into dinosaurs.