I first became interested in science without ever realising that it was science the interested me. My parents used to show my brother and I nature documentaries on TV, and I found the natural world fascinating. I wanted to find out more about it and began reading everything I could. I thought dinosaurs were fantastic from an early age (I still have a full collection of the Dinosaur! Magazine series in my parents’ loft, including all the trading cards) and this developed into a broader interest in palaeontology through membership to Rockwatch. The thing I love most about being a scientist is the detective work. The act of discovery – finding things out that noone has seen or realised before, gathering evidence and coming to your conclusions, constructing a story to tell others about what you’ve found – is very exciting.

My research is varied, ranging from the description of species of ancient sea scorpions and horseshoe crabs to studying patterns of extinction across different habitats during biotic crises. At its core, my work seeks to understand what drives the evolution of new animal forms and how animals evolve to successfully invade new environments, such as moving into freshwater from the oceans or when arthropods first moved on to land. This work explores the fundamental mechanisms by which evolution operates and can tell us how past species have adapted to environmental changes. Understanding how organisms have adapted to new environments in the past can help us interpret how organisms today are likely to respond to our current climate change.

Most of my work focuses on fossil arthropods, particularly eurypterids (sea scorpions) and xiphosurids (horseshoe crabs), aquatic relatives of arachnids (spiders, ticks, scorpions, etc.). My data comes directly from the fossils, and so I have built almost all my datasets completely from scratch. I gather most of it from museum collections – there are so many fossils that have never been described, and many eurypterid species have not been looked at since their original description over a hundred years ago. Museum collections are an invaluable scientific resource and critical to the continued success of all natural sciences. I also communicate science regularly with two of my colleagues, Amanda Falk and Curtis Congreve, on our podcast Palaeo After Dark. The podcast is more of an informal reading group discussion, and stemmed from our desire to keep talking to each other regularly about science as we moved off to do different jobs in different parts of the country. We only have a couple of goals; show that scientists are people with interests beyond science, and to not talk about our own research. We tend to be a bit too technical for general audiences, but I know people that have our discussions on while they are stuck working alone in the lab for company, and it’s nice to know that we can provide that sort of support for people.

For anyone who wants to be a scientist (and believe me, anyone can be a scientist), my main advice is to stay curious. If you can, read about things that interest you. The more you read, the more you will find that interests you.

Follow Dr. Lamsdell’s updates on his website by clicking here or on Twitter @FossilDetective.