Regina G. Barber

I mean, which is so cool.

And it makes it a kind of aquatic worm called a spionid.

So in the study, you said that this also shows the behavior of this really old spionid or parasitic worm.

And to actually show behavior in fossils is really, really rare.

What do you mean by that?

Like, how are you seeing the behavior of these parasitic worms on ancient mollusks?

Now that you've figured out that the riddler, it's an ancient parasite, what else can that tell us?

Now that we know more about this ancestor, how can that help us understanding that parasite now?

Because they basically still exist in our ocean today.

Yeah, and Danielle, you helped Karma on some other research.

We're talking about, again, this mystery you found, this really rare fossil, this clue to, like, leech evolution.

And normally when we think about leeches, we think they are parasites, right?

But your study...

is kind of unique, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And what's fun is like this fossil wasn't hidden away or newly unearthed.

You both found out it existed from a published paper about a fossil site in Wisconsin.

Yeah.

And Karma, how did you feel when they rejected you like that?