This is the second post on the Wedel lab’s recently acquired skull of Ursus americanus , the American black bear. The first installment covered ended with the disinterred-but-still-filthy skull bits sitting on my dining room table. This post covers putting the teeth back in, and just enough anatomy to justify putting up more cool pictures.

After three months as a paleontology grad student, this morning Vanessa I. Graff got to sink a shovel in the service of science. Now, it was a bear skull, deliberately buried in someone’s back yard, so technically today’s exploits fall under the heading of contemporary zooarcheology rather than paleontology, but we’ll take what we can get. This story has a backstory.

…a master and an apprentice. Here’s how the Wedel Lab rolls on Halloween: Check out that padawan braid. It’s official, I have the world’s coolest grad student. Although Vanessa’s choice of lightsaber is a bit worrying. Great danger I foresee in her training.

Something about this photo from the last post has been bugging me all week. It’s the expression on my face. The set jaw, the thrust forward chin, the cocked eyebrow…I knew I had seen these things before. It took me a while, but I was finally able to place it. My doppelganger: If this is an omen, I have no idea what it means. Science will resume shortly.

It’s an anniversary of sorts. Not today, nor any particular day this year, but this year, 2011, marks my 15th year doing research. The last time I blogged about this was the 10th anniversary, back in 2006. Back then I was in my fifth year as a PhD student in Kevin Padian’s lab at Berkeley. I knew I’d have to finish and get a job, but I had no idea how either of those things was going to happen.