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EXPLORE SCIENCE
Doctoral

EARTH SCIENCES
Arjan

Mann

t’s impressive enough to be able to say
you discovered two 310-million-year-old
Ispecies previously unknown to science.
However, if you mention that you called the
burrowing one Diabloroter (devil digger)
and the snake-like one Infernovenator (hell
hunter)—well, you’ve pretty much won the
“coolest job in the room” contest at any
cocktail party.
Carleton Earth Sciences PhD student
Arjan Mann identified the two animals by
examining fossils at the Field Museum in
Chicago. His PhD studies have involved
both museum-based research and extensive
field work with leading experts in Canada
and abroad.
Most museum collections are full of items
that haven’t been extensively studied, Mann
explains. “Everything you see in a museum
is a story someone has chosen to tell you.
But there’s 10 other stories in the back that
someone has not chosen to tell you.”
As well as offering a window into our
past, paleontology can provide clues about
the ways environmental changes affected
previous ecosystems, he notes. “All that
stuff is important for making decisions about
conservation biology, especially given
modern climate change.”

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