Victoria Herridge

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Victoria Louise "Tori" Herridge, born 1980, is a palaeontologist at the Natural History Museum in London and one of the founders of TrowelBlazers, which celebrates women archaeologists, palaeontologists and geologists.

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Victoria Louise "Tori" Herridge
OccupationPalaeontologist

Career

Herridge graduated with a first class degree in biology from University College London in 2002. After a master's degree at Imperial College London, she returned to University College London to gain a doctorate with a thesis titled "Dwarf Elephants on Mediterranean Islands: A Natural Experiment in Parallel Evolution". Her research addressed evolution of island mammals during the Pleistocene period and their responses to extreme climate change. [1] [2] She is a founding editor-in-chief at the open access journal Open Quaternary . [3]

Science communication

Herridge delivered the 2012 Charles Lyell Award lecture at the British Science Festival [4] and co-wrote Who Do You Think You Really Are? for the Natural History Museum. The film was a Premier Award Winner in 2011. As well as her academic output she is a popular science writer: her work includes a piece on the ethics of cloning mammoths versus the importance of saving endangered elephants, and one on the importance of studying the history of women in science (with Brenna Hassett, Suzanne Pilaar Birch and Becky Wragg Sykes), both published in The Guardian . [5] [6]

In November 2014 Herridge co-presented the Channel 4 documentary about the autopsy of the Maly Lyakhovsky Mammoth (aka "Buttercup"). [7] She presented the 2016 Channel 4 series Walking Through Time and co-presented three series of Britain at Low Tide (2016, 2018 and 2019; series 1 with archaeologist Alex Langlands). [8] [9] In January 2020 she presented Bone Detectives: Britain's Buried Secrets on Channel 4. [10]

Related Research Articles

Mammoth Extinct genus of mammals

A mammoth is any species of the extinct elephantid genus Mammuthus, one of the many genera that make up the order of trunked mammals called proboscideans. The various species of mammoth were commonly equipped with long, curved tusks and, in northern species, a covering of long hair. They lived from the Pliocene epoch into the Holocene at about 4,000 years ago, and various species existed in Africa, Europe, Asia, and North America. They were members of the family Elephantidae, which also contains the two genera of modern elephants and their ancestors. Mammoths are more closely related to living Asian elephants than African Elephants.

<i>Palaeoloxodon</i> Genus of extinct elephants

Palaeoloxodon is an extinct genus that contains the various species of straight-tusked elephants. The genus originated in Africa during the Pliocene era, and expanded into Eurasia during the Pleistocene era. One species, Palaeoloxodon namadicus, was possibly the largest known land mammal. The genus has a long and complex taxonomic history, and at various times, it has been considered to belong to Loxodonta or Elephas, but today is considered distinct.

Dwarf elephant Prehistoric elephant species

Dwarf elephants are prehistoric members of the order Proboscidea which, through the process of allopatric speciation on islands, evolved much smaller body sizes in comparison with their immediate ancestors. Dwarf elephants are an example of insular dwarfism, the phenomenon whereby large terrestrial vertebrates that colonize islands evolve dwarf forms, a phenomenon attributed to adaptation to resource-poor environments and selection for early maturation and reproduction. Some modern populations of Asian elephants have also undergone size reduction on islands to a lesser degree, resulting in populations of pygmy elephants.

Mammoth steppe Prehistoric biome

During the Last Glacial Maximum, the mammoth steppe was the Earth's most extensive biome. It spanned from Spain eastward across Eurasia to Canada and from the arctic islands southward to China. The mammoth steppe was cold and dry. The vegetation was dominated by palatable high-productivity grasses, herbs and willow shrubs. The animal biomass was dominated by bison, horses, and woolly mammoth. This ecosystem covered wide areas of the northern part of the globe, thrived for approximately 100,000 years without major changes, but then diminished to small regions around 12,000 years ago.

Oldest Dryas

The Oldest Dryas is a biostratigraphic subdivision layer corresponding to a relatively abrupt climatic cooling event, or stadial, which occurred during the last glacial retreat. The time period to which the layer corresponds is poorly defined and varies between regions, but it is generally dated as starting at 18.5–17 thousand years (ka) before present (BP) and ending 15–14 ka BP. As with the Younger and Older Dryas events, the stratigraphic layer is marked by abundance of the pollen and other remains of Dryas octopetala, an indicator species that colonizes arctic-alpine regions.

Tobias Menzies English actor

Tobias Simpson Menzies is an English stage, television and film actor. He is best known for playing Frank and Jonathan "Black Jack" Randall in STARZ's Outlander, for which he received a Golden Globe Award nomination, in addition to his roles as Brutus in HBO's Rome and Edmure Tully in HBO's Game of Thrones. Menzies also portrayed Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh in the third and fourth seasons of Netflix's series The Crown, a role which earned him a Golden Globe Award nomination and won him the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series.

Woolly mammoth Extinct species of mammoth from the Quaternary period

The woolly mammoth is a species of mammoth that lived during the Pleistocene until its extinction in the Holocene epoch. It was one of the last in a line of mammoth species, beginning with Mammuthus subplanifrons in the early Pliocene. The woolly mammoth began to diverge from the steppe mammoth about 800,000 years ago in East Asia. Its closest extant relative is the Asian elephant. DNA studies show that the Columbian mammoth was a hybrid between woolly mammoths and another lineage descended from steppe mammoths. The appearance and behaviour of this species are among the best studied of any prehistoric animal because of the discovery of frozen carcasses in Siberia and Alaska, as well as skeletons, teeth, stomach contents, dung, and depiction from life in prehistoric cave paintings. Mammoth remains had long been known in Asia before they became known to Europeans in the 17th century. The origin of these remains was long a matter of debate, and often explained as being remains of legendary creatures. The mammoth was identified as an extinct species of elephant by Georges Cuvier in 1796.

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Eliza Maria Gordon-Cumming Scottish aristocrat, horticulturalist, palaeontologist (1795-1842)

Lady Eliza Maria Gordon-Cumming was a Scottish aristocrat, horticulturalist, palaeontologist and scientific illustrator. Lady Cumming collected and studied Devonian fish fossils from the Old Red Sandstone of Morayshire, Scotland. She amassed a large and well-known collection which she illustrated, along with her daughter Lady Anne Seymour. Lady Cumming worked with other palaeontologists and geologists of the time including Louis Agassiz, William Buckland and Roderick Murchison.

Barbara Ann Maher is a Professor of Environmental Science at Lancaster University. She serves as co-director of the centre for environmental magnetism & palaeomagnetism and works on magnetic nanoparticles and pollution.

<i>Ammonite</i> (film) 2020 film by Francis Lee

Ammonite is a 2020 romantic drama film written and directed by Francis Lee. The film is loosely inspired by the life of British palaeontologist Mary Anning, played by Kate Winslet. The film centres on a speculative romantic relationship between Anning and Charlotte Murchison, played by Saoirse Ronan. Gemma Jones, James McArdle, Alec Secăreanu, and Fiona Shaw also star.

TrowelBlazers

TrowelBlazers is a project aimed at increasing the representation of women in the fields of archaeology, geology and palaeontology. The project is run by Brenna Hasset, Victoria Herridge, Suzanne Pilaar Birch and Rebecca Wragg Sykes.

Brenna Hassett American British bioarchaeologist

Brenna R. Hassett is an American British bioarchaeologist at University College London (UCL), author, public speaker and one of the founders of TrowelBlazers, which celebrates women archaeologists, paleontologists and geologists.

Joanne Hamilton is a British parasitologist. She is Professor in the Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences at Aberystwyth University.

Alice Birch is a British playwright and screenwriter. Birch has written several plays, including Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again. for which she was awarded the George Devine Award for Most Promising New Playwright, and Anatomy of a Suicide for which she won the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. Birch was also the screenwriter for the film Lady Macbeth and has written for such television shows as Succession and Normal People.

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Rebecca Wragg Sykes Archaeologist

Rebecca Wragg Sykes is a British Paleolithic archaeologist, broadcaster, popular science writer and author who lives in Wales. She is interested in the Middle Palaeolithic, specifically in the lives of Neanderthals; and she is one of the founders of TrowelBlazers, a website set up to celebrate the lives of women in archaeology, palaeontology and geology.

References

  1. Herridge, Victoria; Lister, A.M. (2012). "Extreme insular dwarfism evolved in a mammoth". Proceedings of the Royal Society B. 279 (1741): 3193–3200. doi:10.1098/rspb.2012.0671. PMC   3385739 . PMID   22572206.
  2. "Dwarfism in Animals on Islands". The Geological Society. 11 September 2013. Retrieved 21 October 2021.
  3. "Editorial Team". Open Quaternary. Retrieved 21 October 2021.
  4. "British Science Festival 2012 – Focus on Geoscience". Geoscience Lines. 29 August 2012. Retrieved 23 June 2014.[ dead link ]
  5. Herridge, Tori (18 November 2014). "Mammoths are a huge part of my life. But cloning them is wrong". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 14 November 2019.
  6. Hassett, Brenna; Birch, Suzanne Pilaar; Sykes, Becky Wragg; Herridge, Victoria (8 March 2017). "The history of women in science shows us the fight is worth it". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 21 October 2021.
  7. "Woolly Mammoth: the Autopsy". Channel 4. 23 November 2014.[ dead link ]
  8. "Britain at Low Tide". Channel 4. Retrieved 21 October 2021.
  9. "Channel 4 announces two new commissions featuring Dr Tori Herridge". Channel 4. 15 June 2016. Retrieved 26 September 2016.[ dead link ]
  10. "Bone Detectives: Britain's Buried Secrets". Channel 4. Retrieved 21 October 2021.