The Life Scientific: Dean Lomax
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How did Dean Lomax's childhood passion for fossils shape his career?
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Imagine being told as a teenager that you're not clever enough to make it as a scientist, a paleontologist to be more specific, then proving those voices wrong by discovering some of the largest prehistoric creatures to have ever roamed the seas. No, this isn't some boy-done-good movie plot. It's the true story of today's guest. Dr Dean Lomax is now one of the world's leading experts on ichthyosaurs, marine reptiles that once ruled our prehistoric seas.
What challenges did Dean face in pursuing paleontology?
But his journey has been anything but conventional. Growing up in Doncaster, Dean's thirst to learn everything he could about fossils and dinosaurs somewhat outstripped his academic achievements. He failed his science GCSEs and then his A-levels and was told by teachers to give up on his dreams. But passion has a way of rewriting expectations. At the age of 18, Dean sold his beloved childhood Star Wars collection to fund a fossil dig in the United States. Not long after that, a chance discovery led him to publish his first scientific paper when he was just 20. Since then, he's discovered multiple new species, presented TV shows and written books for both adults and kids. Proof, if it were needed, that it's worth challenging people who tell you you can't do something.
Dean Lomax, welcome to The Life Scientific. It's a great pleasure to be here. So, as a youngster, you had to get past some really disheartening advice from your elders and supposedly betters. Is it true someone actually told you to stop playing with dinosaurs and get a real job? No. That is true. A teacher?
What pivotal moment led Dean to publish his first scientific paper?
A teacher, yeah. And it was one of the careers advisors. I remember going into the room kind of like, oh, what do you want to do sort of thing? I said, oh, well, I'm gaining experience collecting fossils and wanted to learn about dinosaurs and things. They said, well, stop that nonsense and go and get a real job.
Well, it didn't discourage you. Your passion for the subject clearly ran very deep. Do you remember what first sparked your interest?
I can't quite put my finger on that one key thing, but as far back as I can remember, I've had that love of natural history, fossils, dinosaurs, kind of watching TV documentaries, movies, things like Jurassic Park, you might imagine, but also like Land Before Time, which probably hit some nostalgia. But also visiting museums and collecting fossils and reading books. So there was this kind of a collective thing that just stayed with me.
Well, I also mentioned that your particular field of interest is ichthyosaurs. Tell us a bit more about them.
Ichthyosaurs are a group of ancient marine reptiles. They sort of look a little bit like dolphins or sharks, but they are reptiles. They're often misidentified as swimming dinosaurs, but they were swimming around in the oceans and the seas whilst dinosaurs were walking on land. They appeared roughly 250 million years ago in what's called the Triassic period. And then they went extinct around about 90 million years ago in the Cretaceous period. But they were a highly successful group of prehistoric animals. And they're genuinely really fascinating to study.
Were they quite fierce things?
They were, yeah, to a point. Absolutely, yeah. So they were all predators and some of them... evolved within their respective environments they were kind of top of the food chain hunting pretty much everything you can imagine we've even had direct evidence from some of them where you have their last meals preserved of say fish and squid but there's a few that have marine reptiles preserved in their stomach and hatchling turtles and one of them even contained a bird Goodness me.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
How did Dean Lomax's childhood passion for fossils shape his career?
0:00–1:27
2
What challenges did Dean face in pursuing paleontology?
1:27–2:34
3
What pivotal moment led Dean to publish his first scientific paper?
2:34–4:29
4
How did Dean's journey lead him to discover new ichthyosaur species?
4:29–6:09
5
What is the significance of the Rutland Sea Dragon discovery?
6:09–7:50
6
How did Dean's outreach work impact young aspiring scientists?
7:50–9:21
7
What innovative findings did Dean reveal about ichthyosaurs?
9:21–10:57
8
What advice does Dean give to those facing doubts in their careers?
10:57–28:04