Wayne writes:
The tattoo is a tribute to the past monsters of the deep, the top shark is meant to be Carcharodon megalodon, and the bottom is a Tylosaur Mosasaur. Mixed amongst the waves are Ammonites, based upon Kosmoceras Ammonites. I am an acarologist with an unhealthy obsession with fossils.
Rebecca writes
Attached is a picture of my science tattoo. It is a Marsh Pick, with a series of Pentaceratops vertebra, and a blue peace sign. I am a vertebrate paleontologist and geologist who works on ceratopsid dinosaurs. Since I am a southerner, I choose a southern species of ceratopsian (Pentaceratops sternbergi), from New Mexico. I love the color blue, so I went with the blue peace sign. The whole design is based after the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, but altered to fit my specific passions.
Glendon writes, "I am not a scientist, but I am an oil painter and illustrator in awe of science. My work can be seen on the Scienceblog, Of Two Minds as well as the online 'zine The Eloquent Atheist. My blog is called The Flying Trilobite, and I paint fanciful and surreal images inspired by the discoveries in biology and evolutionary history. Unreal trilobites with insect or bat wings have been a part of my work for over 12 years now and I have painted some of them on pieces of shale, as in this interview with Virginia Hughes. Yesterday I got this tattoo on my arm."
Carl: Why so many trilobites?
Julia writes, "I got this tattoo done on Saturday. It's the same set of footprints I use in the avatar for my blog (The Ethical Palaeontologist), but in fact they're the narrow-gauge sauropod dinosaur trackways from the Ardley quarry in Oxfordshire. There's no deeper meaning other than the fact that I've spent most of my academic career working on sauropod dinosaurs. But there are plans for more, if I could just get hold of a decent black and white illustration of a sauropod dorsal vertebra in dorsal view..."
Carl: Here's a paper Julia co-wrote on what the trackways reveal about dinosaurs. [Update: Whoops, wrong Julia. Thanks for the correction, Julia...]
Michael Ruse, a leading philosopher of science, writes, "Well, now I am starting to feel a little bit inadequate !!!"
A trilobite from Lea, a graduate student in ecology.
Jim describes his tattoo: "a design of Opabinia regalis, a Burgess Shale fossil dating from the Cambrian. It has some pirate imagery, including the hourglass, skull, and nukes. As an evolutionary dead end, Opabinia reminds me of the diversity and tenacity of life through difficulty (how do you put 'Ad Astra Per Aspera' into fossil terms?), and plus it looks awesome."
Carl: Opabinia is the weirdest of the weird, a creature with five eyes and a single appendage sticking out of its head like the arm of a backhoe. It existed half a billion years ago, and its fossil remains were preserved exquisitely in the Burgess Shale formation of Canada. Because it looks unlike anything alive today, it can seem like a dead end. But it would be a mistake to separate it entirely from the animal kingdom. In fact, it shares many traits with living arthropods, a group that includes insects and crustaceans. And while the five eyes and single head arm haven't survived as far as we know, Opabinia was part of a transition from ancient forms to the arthropod body plan seen today. Its legs, for example, offer clues to how a single appendage branched in two. So while there may be no living descendants of Opabinia, they still have something to tell us about life today.
Jeremiah Drewel, a geology student at the University of Alaska writes, "This is my personal favorite Deinonychus!"
Carl: Deinonychus holds a special place in the history of paleontology. Its remains were first discovered in 1931 in Montana, but for decades they languished, unstudied, at the American Museum of Natural History. In the 1960s Yale paleontologist John Ostrom discovered a wealth of new fossils from the same species and began to contemplate what the animal was like in real life. At the time, dinosaurs were still widely considered to be sluggish scaly lumps. But Ostrom argued that Deinonychus was for more active, able to keep its stiffened tail straight out behind its body. He argued that they may have even been warm-blooded. Ostrom also noticed a number of similarities in Deinonychus's skeleton and those of birds. He revived an old theory that birds are dinosaurs, and argued they were closely related to Deinonychus. It's a connection now almost universally accepted by paleontologists.
Deinonychus changed the way we see birds, but birds have also changed the way we see Deinonychus. Many relatives of Deinonychus--non-flying dinosaurs--show evidence of primitive feathers. Velociraptor, a close relative of Deinonychus, had what look like quill knobs on its bones. It's plausible that Deinonychus itself was covered in feathers of some sort as well, which it might have used to attract mates. Depending on what paleontologists discover in years to come, Jeremiah may need to get re-inked.
"I thought I would send you mine : Paranthropus (Australopithecus depending on your school of thought) boisei."--Gabrielle Russo, Hunter Colllege.
Carl: Paranthropus boisei existed from 2.3 million to 1 million years ago--a good run. It stood upright like us, but had a small brain and powerful jaws for biting tough food like seeds and roots. Paranthropus boisei is not our ancestor, not even a close cousin. Instead, it belonged to a separate branch of hominid evolution--one that may have been wiped out by a changing climate. Now it is remembered in museums and on at least one tattooed arm.
"Here is my archaeopteryx, the 'missing link' between birds and reptiles. It comes in handy as a visual tool during debates with creationists that like to visit campus sometimes! Yes, I know structural pigments probably had not evolved by this time..." --Jeremy Batten
" I am a currently a neuroimaging research assistant and I used to work in inorganic chemistry. I got this tattoo after I took a philosophy class on the origins of life, which turned out to be an intelligent design class in disguise. The geological record was always being disputed in class. This is my political statement against intelligent design being taught in schools. This tattoo shows my support of the geological record and evolution, as well as my love for trilobites and other ancient marine creatures. It is based on the species paradoxides davidis. I am going to get a similar tattoo on the other arm of a fossilized leaf, so that I have both the flora and the fauna." -- Judith Segall
"There is no rational explanation for this tattoo, only post-inking scenarios. I do not study snakes, nor do I particularly like them. There is, however, a when. The idea and the product came at the end of a yearlong effort to delineate the biology behind a fossil skeleton. Although I have always sought to explain hard tissue morphology by reference to soft tissues, this work took me way beyond the limits of my previous understanding. The result was a massive expansion of my thinking on how modern biology can be integrated into understanding fossil populations. In the post-publication stupor, the snakes appeared and got inked. I suppose you could say that they represent the commingling of knowledge from living forms with that from fossil forms. But then again you could suggest any number of ‘rational’ explanations for having two large snakes permanently inked on your arm."-- Gary Richards, UC Berkeley
"here is a photograph of the one my boyfriend offered me three years ago. Although I don't work directly on the Burgess Shales fossils, they are some of the coolest fossils around, and a summary of what is so fascinating in paleontology and evolutionary biology..." --Mag
"Here's my science tattoo."--Vincent Iadevaia
Neil writes, " I got the tattoo shortly after SJ Gould's death. I had settled on the design before he died so it's not quite an homage but I did lift the picture from Wonderful Life. The original figure is by Marianne Collins I believe. The Cambrian "c" was added later, my long-range plan was/is for a whole paleozoic sleeve but I ran out of funding soon. I'd also like to get more 'stem' taxa one of these days."
Neil writes, "Attached is a picture of the trilobite that I have tattoo on my shoulder. It looked slightly less damaged before I came of my bike recently but that is another story. For the record I have a Ph.D. in theoretical physics and am currently a lecturer in Electronics."
Dr. Anthony Friscia writes: "The attached pic shows my tattoo of Miacis gracilis, and Eocene carnivoran from NE Utah I used in both my master thesis and doctoral dissertation. I started studying the carnivorans (members of the mammalian order Carnivora) there after going to the field with my undergrad advisor right out of college. I didn't know what I was going to do with my life, and he said, "Come play in the dirt for a month and see if you like paleontology" and I did - like paleontology that is. He was an anthropologist so was interested in the early primates out there, but I liked the carnivores - cuz they ATE the primates....My masters was on the alpha taxonomy of the new species we found while collecting, and my dissertation was about broader community change in carnivores throughout the Eocene. Both used specimens of this particular taxa, and even this particular picture."
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