Henry Gee

So I had to teach these undergraduates.

But I found that all the notes from the lecturers were very, very old-fashioned.

So I had to do a lot of work to try and understand this myself.

And I got sucked in down that rabbit hole.

So it's a subject that's very close to my heart.

And I've written now two books about the origins of vertebrates.

I can't help myself.

I don't want to write another one.

I did write one, and then people kept asking me to write another one.

And I said, no, I'm not a scientist.

You scientists, you write one.

And then I was cornered in a room by two of these scientists and my publisher.

So there was no excuse.

So I had to spend 16 months writing another book about the origin of vertebrates because a lot has been discovered in terms of genetics, in terms of molecular biology, and, of course, in fossils.

Now, it was the Chengjiang fauna of China that produced the things that kind of solved the problem.

But I have to go back to one of these strange worms that Simon Conway and Morris described.

You can't help yourself, can you?

Well, there was this kind of strange worm thing called picaia, which looked like a segmented fish fillet.

Because it wasn't an arthropod, Simon got to study that.

He'd written an initial description a long time ago.