Adventures in the Stacks: 508.074

British palaeontologist, Richard Fortey, writes about behind-the-scenes guide to London’s Natural History Museum.  Hmmm...sounds interesting. Plus, cool cover and who wouldn't want to know more about this BEAUTIFUL place?

Fortey writes "...I retreated back down the little hidden staircase into the familiar world of the basement of the Natural History Museum, and to the embrace of the trilobites."
​Fortey is a Trilobite expert.  I know this because he wrote another book before this one called Trilobite! Eyewitness to Evolution.  I personally love his excitement.  

What's a Tri-lo-bite and why is Fortey so obsessed with them?
Trilobites are a fossil group of extinct marine arthropods and form one of the earliest known groups of arthropods.
I'm lost, what are arthropods?
An arthropod is an invertebrate animal having an exoskeleton (external skeleton), a segmented body, and jointed appendages.

They're so ugly and they look like this...​

Weird Trilobite facts:
Trilobites are the state fossils of Ohio, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

American Museum of Natural History has an entire website dedicated to Trilobites.
http://www.amnh.org/our-research/paleontology/faq/trilobite-website

Why do you love Trilobites so much Richard? Can I call you Richard?

I wish I could understand half the things Fortey writes about in his books.  For now, I'm satisfied knowing the name of an actual senior paleontologist.  You know other than the most famous one...Ross Gellar.