Lost Fossil Found: Paleobotanist Recovers Once-in-a-Lifetime Specimen

Today, I sit down with Dr. Fabiany Herrera, associate curator of paleobotany at the Field Museum, to time-travel through Earth’s deep past.

We dig into how fossil plants reveal the origins of today’s neotropical rainforests, why the dinosaur extinction closed forest canopies and unleashed vines and grapes, and how long ecosystems really take to recover after catastrophe.

We also unpack his global hunts, from Colombia and Panama to Mongolia and Wyoming, including the wild story of a misidentified “leaf” that was actually a baby turtle, and the day he dropped a one-of-a-kind fossil… then recovered it by sieving an entire quarry with pasta strainers.

If you love science, discovery, and the detective work behind it, this one’s for you.

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