In Chicago’s Field Museum, behind access-controlled doors, are about 1,500 dinosaur fossil specimens. The palaeobiologist Jasmina Wiemann walks straight past the bleached leg bones – neither does she glance at the fully intact spinal cord. She only has eyes for the deep chocolate-brown fossils: these are the ones containing preserved organic matter – bones that offer unprecedented insights into creatures that went extinct millions of years ago.
Wiemann is part of the burgeoning field of conservation palaeobiology, where researchers are looking to the deep past to predict extinction vulner-ability. At a time when humans could be about to witness a sixth mass extinction, studying fossil records is useful
