A quick, but cold, 15-minute walk along the parkway to get to The Academy of Natural Sciences by 9 a.m. During this walk, I like to listen to podcasts to distract myself from the freezing temperatures.
When I arrive at the Academy, I take the elevator up to the fourth floor where the Vertebrate Paleontology department is located. I unlock the lab that acts as my home base and immediately turn on the heaters. My supervisor will then tell me what I should do that day.
One task I end up doing a lot is inventory of the mammal collection. I open up giant locked cabinets and record if all of the catalog numbers for a given species are where they belong. This task normally has me smelling like moth balls by the end of the day, but luckily I have gotten used to the strong smell.
These are leopard bones that I did inventory of. Along with bones, I also spend a lot of time inventorying animal skins and body mounts. Sometimes, when I’m about to open a cabinet, I have to prepare myself for what could be on the other side, like a giant rat staring at me!
Another task I sometimes do during my day is tagging or cleaning reptiles for the Herpetology department. Herpetology is the study of reptiles and amphibians. It’s also where you will find a giant room filled with animals in alcohol jars, like you might see in an evil lair. These are some rough green snakes and a baby black rat snake that I was tagging before putting them back in the jar.
I also get to work with minerals. The Academy recently got a new donation of minerals, and I was tasked with unboxing them and labeling them. Some of the minerals are even radioactive.
After a day of handling animal bones, dead reptiles, and sometimes pretty minerals, I leave the Academy at 3 p.m. and make my cold walk home.