She Was A Paleobiologist, And Her Expeditions To The Gobi Desert Were So Successful That She Brought Back Over 20 Tons Of Fossils
When thinking about important paleontologists and biologists that have helped us better understand the creatures that came before us, many people begin to think about the men in that field.
However, we should also recognize the women who made remarkable discoveries, like Zofia Kielan-Jaworowska, the Polish paleobiologist whose research and work in the Gobi Desert was and is still admired worldwide.
Zofia was born in 1925 in Sokołów Podlaski, Poland. She spent many of her childhood years in Warsaw when her father moved their family there for work. Her love for science was ignited when she attended lectures given by Polish paleontologist Roman Kozlowski in his home.
She attended the University of Warsaw, earning a master’s degree in zoology and a doctorate in paleontology. While at the University of Warsaw, Zofia joined other geologists, paleontologists, etc., on their excavations in Poland’s Świętokrzyskie Mountains.
After earning her master’s in 1949, Zofia was hired as an assistant in the University of Warsaw’s Department of Paleontology. Then, in 1961, she was appointed director of the Institute of Paleobiology in Warsaw, which was part of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
In the 1960s, Zofia went on a series of expeditions that would significantly alter her career. Zofia helped organize some of the first Polish expeditions to the Gobi Desert in Mongolia.
This made her one of the first women to lead a dinosaur excavation expedition. She traveled there several times between 1963 and 1971 and made some fascinating discoveries.
In the Gobi Desert, Zofia discovered multiple fossils of dinosaurs and mammals that were alive during the Cretaceous period and were millions of years old. One of the most incredible fossils Zofia and her group found were the ones of a Velociraptor who appeared to have been in conflict with a Protoceratops.
Although the trip was successful, it certainly wasn’t easy. At one point, Zofia suffered a ruptured ear drum after a sandstorm in the desert. She flew home to have surgery and then returned to the desert to continue her work.
Gorodenkoff – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only, not the actual people
Zofia’s expeditions to the Gobi Desert were so successful that her group brought over 20 tons of fossils back to Poland. She kept detailed notes during her journey and wrote about it in her book Hunting for Dinosaurs, which was published and translated into English in 1969.
Zofia’s research and findings changed how some scientists looked at the evolution of prehistoric mammals. After returning from the Gobi Desert, Zofia took several jobs as a professor at institutions like the University of Oslo and the Musée National d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris.
She won many awards for her work, including the Walter Granger Memorial Award in 1988 and the Righteous Among the Nations Medal in 1999.
In 2004, she published a reference book titled, Mammals From the Age Of Dinosaurs with co-author Zhe-Xi Lou. One year later, it won her the Prize of the Foundation for Polish Science.
Amazingly, some extinct animals have been named after Zofia in her honor, like the Zofiabaatar, a mammal from the Upper Jurassic period.
Zofia passed away a few weeks before her 90th birthday on March 13th, 2015. However, her hard work will never be forgotten.
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