Paleontology Grad Student Hasn't Seen Sunlight in Six Months, Colleagues Unsure If This Is Related to Dissertation or Just Personality

Fellow graduate students in the University of Alberta's paleontology program have expressed concern for doctoral candidate Ethan Lithic, 29, who has not been observed above ground level since approximately August of last year and has been subsisting entirely on vending machine provisions in the museum's basement collections facility.

'I went down to borrow a caliper and he was just there, in the dark, surrounded by drawers of Edmontosaurus vertebrae,' said fellow student Priya Amber. 'He was wearing the same flannel shirt as the last time I saw him, which was in September. He said he was "close to a breakthrough." He did not specify what the breakthrough was.'

Lithic's dissertation, provisionally titled 'Ontogenetic Variation in the Caudal Vertebrae of Hadrosauridae: A Morphometric Analysis,' requires the measurement of approximately 4,000 individual vertebrae, a task he estimates he is '60 percent through, give or take.'

'People ask me why I chose this topic and I tell them it chose me,' Lithic said via email, the only form of communication he currently uses. 'The vertebrae need measuring. Someone has to measure them. I am that someone. Everything else is a distraction, including the sun, which I understand is still operational.'

Lithic's advisor, Dr. Sandra Maastricht, acknowledged that the situation was 'not ideal but not unprecedented.' She noted that she herself once spent four months in a Mongolian field tent measuring ceratopsian frills and 'emerged with a Nature paper and a vitamin D deficiency that took years to resolve.'

The department has placed a potted plant and a UV lamp outside the collections room as 'a gentle suggestion.' Lithic has reportedly moved the plant inside and is using the UV lamp to better examine suture patterns.