Former undergraduate blog reaches Mongolia

Casting my mind back to May 2019, I was an undergraduate student on the University of Birmingham's (then) Palaeobiology and Palaeoenvironments MSci programme. Myself and my colleagues Harry T. Jones, Jack Wood, Adam Manning, and Lewis Haller had a passion for palaeontology and wanted to share that with the world, so we started a blog called Darwin's Door.

Across my four years with the blog, we dished out stories regarding some of the most interesting parts of palaeontology (at least for us!), with my own personal highlights including Deinonychus antirrhopus; Evolution of Cetaceans; and Understanding Therizinosaurs. I was even fortunate enough to curate an interview series in which we got to speak to some of the diverse names in international palaeontology.

Though life has carried me in new and exciting directions, I do remember the blog fondly, and so I was extremely shocked to learn that our work had made an impact across the world!

One of our first articles, released in October 2019, explored the Fighting Dinosaurs - the famous fossil of a Velociraptor and Protoceratops locked in vicious combat. Considered a national treasure in Mongolia, I was first made aware of this exquisite fossil during childhood via an old BBC documentary. Myself and Adam led the writing here, with Lewis and Jack editing the final work. In 2020, we even revisited the article with the beautiful sketch of Elizabeth Kay and a bid to understand the current whereabouts of the fossil (now known to be in the Mongolian Institute of Palaeontology).

And so that is where we left the story, until recently. Professor Susannah Maidment of the Natural History Museum, London has been on a trip to Mongolia and has seen many amazing sights (including the original Fighting Dinosaurs fossil) - but the former Darwin's Door team were astounded to learn that an excerpt from our very own article has been engraved beneath the Fighting Dinosaurs statue at the Flaming Cliffs, right in the Gobi desert!

It is absolutely remarkable to think that our words have been etched into existence over 5000 miles from where they were first written, and that even now our old work can still crop up in surprising ways. I must wish a huge thank you to Susie for bringing this to our attention, and one to all those readers who enjoyed the blog throughout my tenure. Though I am no longer a permanent member of the team, I hear Darwin's Door will have more content in the future, and I look forward to seeing this through the eyes of a fan rather than a contributor.