Meredith Palmer writes, “I am currently working on Guam studying the invasive Brown Tree Snake. I graduated with my B.A. in Zoology in 2011 and have spent the last year or so in Africa studying large mammals, in the Caribbean examining guppy evolution, and in Canada digging up dinosaurs. And now I find myself in the Pacific! The plan, however, is to attend graduate school next fall. Although I majored in zoology, I always had an interested in paleontology born out of cold, rainy childhood summers spent cracking shale in New England with my geologist parents. Dicranurus is one of my favorite trilobite species, and the design is modeled after scientific plates in the publications of Barrande, a Boehmian paleontologist from the 1800s.”

Barrande’s beautiful illustrations are posted on the Smithsonian’s web site. For more on the glorious vanished trilobites, visit A Guide to the Order of the Trilobites.

You can see the rest of the Science Tattoo Emporium here and in Science Ink: Tattoos of the Science Obsessed.

Originally published January 20, 2013. Copyright 2013 Carl Zimmer.