A paleontologist is a scientist who studies the history of life on Earth through the fossil record. They use fossil remains to understand different aspects of extinct and living organisms, including their life, environment, and evolution. Paleontologists study all sorts of life forms, including plants, animals, fungi, bacteria, and single-cell organisms. They often focus on organisms that lived long ago, but they also study living organisms to understand their evolutionary history. Paleontology is traditionally divided into various subdisciplines, including paleobotany, palynology, invertebrate paleontology, vertebrate paleontology, human paleontology, taphonomy, ichnology, and paleoecology. Paleontologists use a variety of tools to discover, examine, and describe fossils, including electron microscopes, X-ray machines, CT scanners, and advanced computer programs. Most paleontologists spend a lot of time in the field to collect the fossils that they study, and they work at universities, museums, federal or state governments, or in private industry. To become a paleontologist, one needs to have a broad scientific training, including courses in Earth science, biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics, and computer science.