Dust off your shovels, aspiring paleontologists, we’ve got some digging to do. October’s issue of National Geographic focuses on new discoveries in paleontology, straight from the researchers who made them.

Nizar Ibrahim was one of those researchers, and his work is featured prominently in the magazine. He’s an assistant professor of biology at University of Detroit Mercy. He’s also a National Geographic Explorer, a grant program that National Geographic extends to groundbreaking researchers in many disciplines.