Last Fall, October 2022, I received the support of the FLMNH Travel grant and the Gapenski Endowment to participate in the meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology (SVP) in Toronto, Canada from November 1st – 7th. During this meeting I gave a talk on the latest advances on my dissertation research in a 19-million-year-old fossil community of Frogs of Panama, and participated in the award ceremony of the society where I received the Richard Estes Memorial Grant.
For this meeting, I presented the results of one of my dissertations chapters on the fossil frogs of Panama. The findings for this research are exciting and unexpected. In the 19-million-year-old deposits
of the Panama Canal we found a community of frogs that, according to our preliminary findings, had morphological similarities to that of frogs that are from South America. This suggests that some groups of frogs were able to disperse from northern South America to Central America before a land connection(the Isthmus of Panama) was formed. Surprisingly and excitingly, all other mammals from the same locality have affinities with North American mammals and are similar to those in Florida at the time. I had the opportunity to communicate our findings with a community of paleontologist with different paleogeography and systematics interests.
Besides having the opportunity of communicating my research, this meeting was a great opportunity to meet new people. Frog paleontology is a very small field in the world of paleontology or herpetology. During this meeting I had the opportunity to meet and interact in a great extent with two other frog Paleontologist from different parts of the worlds. Building academic relationships with other paleontologist is fundamental for my career. In the same way, I was able to meet other paleontologist from my home country, which work in very different fields, but with whom I am still in contact and discuss topics related to science and paleontology in Colombia.
Finally, during this meeting, I was awarded the Richard Estes memorial Grant for Graduate Students Research on non mammalian paleontologist. This award is very prestigious and is the second time it is awarded to a student from the FLMNH. The previous time, the award was given to Lazaro Vinola-Lopez in 2021. I appreciate the support to participate in this meeting, I recognize the value an importance of doing so in my carrier.
Maria Camila Vallejo-Pareja is a graduate student pursuing a Ph.D. through the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Department of Biology, advised by Dr. David Blackburn, Curator of Herpetology, and Dr. Jonathan Bloch, Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology here at the Florida Museum.
The 2022 Fall Student Travel Awards are supported by the FLMNH Department of Natural History, including funds from the Louis C. and Jane Gapenski Endowed Fellowship. If you would like to help support this fund for future student awards, please go to:
Louis C. and Jane Gapenski Endowed Fellowship