Dr. Fernwhistle's dinosaur field course

Somewhere in the ferns of the Primeval Isle, a herd of Parasaurolophus calls to each other through their hollow crests, a sound like a low trombone. Get close, get quiet, and Dr. Fernwhistle's field course begins — ending, steps later, with your name pinned to her board for helping calm the island's own Tyrannosaurus rex, friends at your side.

Who is Dr. Fernwhistle

A tall grey-blue heron in a pith helmet and round glasses, with a satchel full of notebooks. Her camp sits in the open on the Primeval Isle: a canvas tent, a folding table piled with notes and a magnifying glass, a fossil skull on a crate, and a campfire always going. She'll happily remind you that a heron is a bird, and a bird is a living dinosaur — her favourite fact, told often.

How the course runs

From level 10, talk to her and the field course opens up. Each step sends you out into the isle, and each one you finish teaches something true about the animal you just met:

1. Meet the naturalist at her camp.
2. Study a Parasaurolophus — get close and watch quietly, without it fleeing or chasing.
3. Bring three fossils, dug from fossil beds and bone rocks around the isle.
4. Bring a piece of amber, mined from amber boulders or dropped by old trees.
5. Calm two Velociraptors — they hunt in pairs through the ferns, so come ready for both at once.
6. Photograph a Pteranodon, a flying reptile and a dinosaur cousin rather than a dinosaur itself.
7. Study a Triceratops up close, without it charging.
8. Calm the island's Tyrannosaurus rex. It's the biggest step of the course, so bring friends.

"Calm" is the word Dr. Fernwhistle and everyone else in the valley use for winning a fight against a creature: nothing in TATAZO is ever killed for good, only cleansed and calmed.

Finish the course and she pins your notes to her board: you've earned a true naturalist's welcome, and the run of the island.

What you can do about it

• Level up before you go. Below level 10 she sends you off safely instead; the isle's plant-eaters and hunters are more than a beginner can handle.
• Bring a Calm Aura for studying. Watching a Parasaurolophus or a Triceratops only works while it isn't chasing or charging you — see The Calm Aura.
• Mine as you explore. Fossil beds, bone rocks and amber boulders are scattered across the isle, the same ones Things to discover describes everywhere else.
• Save the Tyrannosaurus for a party. Dr. Fernwhistle says it's too strong for one, and she's nearly right: a well-geared gator with potions can do it alone, but friends make it quicker and safer. See Level sync and parties for bringing friends along at a fair level.

There's more to find on the isle besides the field course itself: the Amber Ridge Dig runs its own short notice-board story about brushing fossils clean, one of many told across every land (see Things to discover).

Where next

Take the ferry or paddle across to the Primeval Isle (see Getting around, and animal friends and Continents and danger for how the isle's creatures compare to the rest of the map), then look Dr. Fernwhistle up at her camp. When you're ready for the valley's hardest fight of all, read The Old Warden's fight.