DINOSAURS: Ancient Fossils ~ New Discoveries at the Field Museum

Tuesday, 24 April 2007 19:40

Chicago, IL - Dinosaurs, “extinct” for 65 million years, live today in a child’s imagination…in modern birds, descendants of the ancient reptiles… and now in an exciting, hands-on exhibition that’s sure to change your thinking about everyone’s favorite prehistoric creatures.  Dinosaurs: Ancient Fossils, New Discoveries brings new life to old bones, with an eye-opening look at dinosaurs as living creatures that breathed, battled, and bred in complex environments they shared with countless other species.  If you’re ready to catch up with the latest dinosaur discoveries and evolutionary theories, this is your chance – at the hottest place to see dinosaurs, Chicago’s Field Museum.  On exhibition until 3 September, 2007.

Using real fossils and casts, high-tech moving models, vivid computer animations, and a recreated Mesozoic forest, the exhibit highlights cutting-edge research by scientists at The Field Museum and around the world – including new information about the evolutionary link between dinosaurs and modern birds.  You can watch a robotic T. rex run, touch a real Triceratops horn, and use new computer software to see how an Apatosaurus moved its neck and tail. You’ll learn about the latest fossil finds, see what mysteries are being revealed by new technologies, and discover how scientists are changing their ideas about how dinosaurs lived…and how they died.

The exhibition is organized by the American Museum of Natural History, New York, in collaboration with The Field Museum, Chicago; Houston Museum of Natural Science; the California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco; and the North Carolina State Museum of Natural Sciences, Raleigh.

Amazing New Discoveries

“The beauty of paleontology is that we’re constantly finding out new things,” says Dr. Peter Makovicky, curator of dinosaurs at The Field Museum.  “It’s a field that constantly rejuvenates itself.”

Makovicky should know. He’s done ground-breaking research on three of the new dinosaur species discovered in China’s Liaoning Province, home to some of the most important and best-preserved fossil beds in the world.  This is where, for example, the first feathered dinosaurs made world-wide headlines – and changed our view of birds forever.

You’ll come face-to-face with dozens of extraordinary creatures like these in the exhibition’s centerpiece: a 700-square-foot recreation of a Liaoning forest as it might have looked 130-million years ago.  Here a Microraptor, wing-like feathers on its arms and legs, glides between trees; a badger-sized mammal stalks a group of baby parrot-beaked dinosaurs; a small dinosaur sleeps like a bird, with its head tucked under its forearm and its tail encircling its body.  The open diorama – there are no glass walls between you and the forest! – includes a host of life-like dinosaurs, unfamiliar mammals, extinct and living plants, huge insects, primitive birds, and more familiar-looking amphibians and fish.  Some of these are being shown to the public for the first time.

“The geography of this area in China did an amazing job of preserving not only bones but soft tissue,” Makovicky says. “We’ve been able to see feathers and protofeathers [early, feather-like fibers], and even the veins on insect wings.” The exhibition shows what these delicate finds tell scientists about the evolution of feathers and flight.

Cool New Technologies

Remember the scene in Jurassic Park where a T. rex pursues our heroes at speeds of 45 miles an hour? That plot twist will have to be updated, according to the latest experiments in biomechanics.  Scientists and movie directors now have new information on just how fast a creature of that size and shape really could run – and it’s probably about half that speed. 

You’ll see what that means when you encounter the coolest mechanical dino ever: a six-foot, walking, stalking T. rex skeleton – the most accurate model ever built of how the creature moved.  Next to it, at a touch-screen station, you can conduct your own virtual experiments, just like the scientists, to see how changing muscle mass, posture, or center of gravity would affect the speed of a rampaging T. rex and other animals, including humans.  Vying for the “coolest dino” title is a stunning 60-foot-long Apatosaurus skeleton, its gleaming metallic arcs shaped by computer analysis; you can watch a two-dimensional version of it add layers of bone, muscle, and skin on a giant animated screen.

Startling New Ideas

New discoveries and new technologies have led scientists to new insights about ancient life.  The now widely accepted evolutionary link between dinosaurs and birds is one idea explored in the exhibition – through feathers, bone structure, and much more.  Other new ideas address something equally mysterious: dinosaur behavior.

For example, in an analysis that could have been a scene from CSI, dinosaur tracker Martin Lockley examined the tracks of nearly two dozen sauropods that, millions of years ago, walked across an ancient mudflat on what is now a Texas ranch. Lockley was able to identify individual animals and calculate their size and direction. He concluded that small and full-grown dinosaurs were traveling together, the little ones following in the tracks of the larger ones, just as elephants do today.  You’ll see a large recreation of the trackway, with special lighting tracing the steps of individual dinosaurs, and learn how scientists read ancient footprints.

And what about those outlandish horns, spikes, crests, and frills sported by so many dinosaurs? You’ll see plenty of them mounted on the exhibition’s “trophy wall” of ceratopsian skulls.  Were they used for fighting or defense? For display and competition in attracting a mate? For species recognition?  Or for cooling animals on a hot day?

“There’s always been a lot of speculation on that point,” Peter Makovicky says. His own work with the very early ceratopsian, Liaoceratops, revealed small pits in its rudimentary frill indicating strong jaw muscle attachments, possibly for chewing tough food.  “Lately we’ve developed a complex model,” he continues – one that suggests that dinosaur adornment may have evolved to serve different purposes in different species over time.

One of the longest-running debates in paleontology involves extinction. If you hold to the giant meteorite theory, you might be surprised to discover that recent research points to a more complicated story – one involving not only a huge impact, but also intense volcanic activity, retreating sea levels, and the survival of the fittest of the dinosaurs: those that evolved into birds. Find out more about it at Dinosaurs: Ancient Fossils, New Discoveries.

The Field Museum is located at 1400 S. Lake Shore Drive, on CTA bus lines #6, #12, and #146, and close to other routes and the Metra electric and South Shore lines.  An indoor parking garage is located just steps from the main entrance.  Visit The Field Museum at: www.fieldmuseum.org for more information.