A what?

Last night we were sitting on the couch, not talking about anything scientific (not that we usually are). Some guy in a lab coat showed up on tv, Maggie said, "is he a paleontologist?".....I had to say "a what?" twice, not because I couldn't understand her, but because I couldn't believe she used the word paleontologist! Then I asked her if she knew what a paleontologist was, and she said, "yes" (with the, your the dumbest mom in the world tone) "it's the scientist who can tell us what fossils we're looking at. The people working at Ashfalls were paleontologists." and that was that! We're in real trouble.