Meanwhile, back at the lab

Science is never silent in Room 28. Today, our young paleontologists were “back in the lab” with their bones, noisily discussing which part of the animal their group had collected from the dig site.

They began by removing any remaining matrix from the bones.

Some groups soon learned that cleaning must be done carefully or your carefully collected fossils may be damaged. “We lost a tooth!”

Next, the children applied their knowledge of the human skeleton to put our mystery Humpty Dumpty together again.

♪ Head, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . shoulders, ♪

♪ knees, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . and toes ♪

As with all funded research, our paleontologists were also required to write a report on their findings. The group with the jaw was able to determine that our mystery animal is a carnivore. The group with the phalanges suspects that our mystery animal must be smaller than a human, “maybe the size of a cat.” This group also hypothesizes that perhaps the animal uses the claw they found to attack its prey.

To learn more, read Dr. Bakker's discussion of how scientists use animal bones to draw conclusions about how they lived.