From The Silverfish Rap, to the @frozenark, a about how my favourite childhood poem led to all sorts of wonderful things 1/10

When I was in primary school, my mum gave us poetry books to help with our reading, I was obsessed with animals so they all had animally themes. 2/10

One of the books called “Don’t step on that earwig” by @RowenaSom contained such a brilliant rap that it got lodged into my head and seemingly for good reason... 3/10

The Silverfish Rap is about a bored silverfish sitting in a cupboard contemplating its perceived limited evolutionary progress in comparison with the other creatures in the world. 4/10

Fast forward a few years and my animal obsession continued into a degree in Zoology, and then blow and behold a PhD in evolutionary biology. So naturally this rap was to take centre stage in my Acknowledgments. 5/10

I trawled the internet to find Rowena to ask permission to use it. A quick search of Facebook and boom! 6/10

We got chatting, and I told her how much I loved the poem and how it seemed to have quite the influence on my career, she was thrilled! At that time I was working for the @frozenark, so I explained the project and how we were looking for public outreach methods 7/10

From there, Rowena started working with @frozenark on projects inc. developing the #VirtualArk, she visited our lab and gave a reading of The Silverfish Rap (and signed my thesis!), and attended virtual lab meetings to encourage the poet in everyone! 8/10

We still keep in touch, and today I received the most perfect print of Mountain Chicken Frogs drawn by Rowena to compliment her latest (fantastic!) poem about this species, one of the first species I studied in @MolEcolCU . 9/10

So my message is, if someone did something that meant a lot to you (even unknowingly) then tell them. It will mean a lot to them, and could lead to all sorts of adventures! Thank you Rowena and to that tiny little silverfish... 10/10