What’s the point of palaeontology?

Palaeontology is often seen as one of the cool sciences, if not the coolest, because, of course, it’s the one with dinosaurs!

Is there more to it, though?

Don’t get us wrong… dinosaurs are awesome!

Does palaeontology have any practical use to the community? Is there any real value beyond thinking it’s cool, that palaeontology brings to the table?

In this episode of Palaeo Jam, host Michael Mills is joined by Dr Aaron Camens, (lecturer in palaeontology at Flinders University), and Pheobe McInerney, (PhD Candidate at Flinders University) to discuss all the things, and what they think makes palaeontology such a valuable science.

In pondering this very issue, Aaron recently said…

“The fossil record records diversity but it is much more than that. It contains abundant data about how past ecosystems have functioned, the kinds of habitats extinct organisms used to live in and their environmental tolerances. Without the fossil record we wouldn’t understand nearly as much as we do about how today’s ecosystems will respond to change going into the future…”

You can follow Aaron on Twitter at https://twitter.com/DiprotoRon, and check out his Flinders University profile at https://sites.flinders.edu.au/palaeontology/home/people/academics/aaron-camens/

Amongst his extensive research work, Aaron co-authored a paper that gave us a more complete picture of the largest marsupial predator known, Thylacoleo carnifex. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0208020

Phoebe is on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Phoebyornis Check out her recent article in The Conversation about disease in giant prehistoric birds, and how we know about it.

https://theconversation.com/fossil-find-reveals-giant-prehistoric-thunder-birds-were-riddled-with-bone-disease-173745