PAUL D. TAYLOR has worked for 30 years in the Department of Paleontology at the Natural History Museum, London, heading the Invertebrate and Plants division between 1990 and 2003. His research focuses on fossil and living bryozoans, with interests in evolution, paleoecology, and fossil folklore. He is the author of Fossil Invertebrates.

AARON O’DEA is Scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama. He uses the fossil record to understand past climactic changes in the seas and their role in extinction and speciation, and how life in the past can help us predict yhe future.