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‘Tiny Titans’ exhibit includes live hatchings by ‘living dinosaurs’

By Guest PostJanuary 28, 2014Nature, ScienceArgentina, articulated dinosaur, babies, baby dinosaurs, baby louie, China, dinosaur eggs, duck-billed dinosaurs, early ceratopsian dinosaur, elephant bird aepyornis, embryos, exhibit, first dinosaur eggs, flaming cliffs, fossilized dinosaur eggs, gobi desert, hatchings, john ostrom, living dinosaurs, long necked dinosaurs, luis rey, meat eating dinosaurs, ornithopods, paleontology, patagonia, richard prum, sauropod nesting grounds, sauropods, theropods, tiny titans, titanosaurs, yale peabody museum, yale professor, young psittacosaurs

In 1923 the Flaming Cliffs of the Gobi Desert yielded one of the most-celebrated finds of paleontology. Entombed in sun-baked sandstone was a collection of oval-shaped oddities: the first dinosaur eggs known to science. This 75-million-year-old find would be followed by others, providing a glimpse into the lives of these ancient creatures that no skeleton could.

Since that discovery, fossilized dinosaur eggs and nests have been recovered from sites around the world, as have the bones of tiny hatchlings and even tinier embryos. These discoveries are allowing scientists to unlock the mysteries of dinosaur reproductive and social behavior, such as: Were dinosaurs social animals? Did they care for their young? What was life like for baby dinosaurs? (more…)

English Literature Influenced Prize-Winning Paleontologist

By Guest PostJanuary 14, 2012Science21st century, age of reptiles, ancient plant structure, carbon cycle, carboniferous period, cocktail party, dinosaurs, earth, ecology, evolution, excalibur movie, fieldwork, fossil record, giant fungus, harvard university, history of life, ice age, jung eun lee, kevin boyce, knowledge, la brea tar pits, lloyd degrane, los angeles, macroevolution, mammal fossils, michael foote, million years ago, mural, pair of calipers, paleontology, plant fossils, prehistoric life, scanning electron microscope, school, soil moisture, terrestrial ecosystems, vascular plants

For a short time in grade school, Kevin Boyce lived within two blocks of the La Brea tar pits in Los Angeles, a place where ice age mammal fossils had been discovered. Above his bed hung a poster of the Yale Peabody Museum’s famous Age of Reptiles mural. But it wasn’t a boyhood fascination with prehistoric life that influenced his interest in paleontology, but rather the medieval literary world of Chaucer that Boyce discovered in college.

“I didn’t think twice about fossils between the ages of 7 and 20,” said Boyce, associate professor in geophysical sciences. Even during his undergraduate studies in literature and biology at the California Institute of Technology in the early 1990s, the deep history of life on Earth was far from his mind. (more…)

Tag Archives: paleontology

‘Tiny Titans’ exhibit includes live hatchings by ‘living dinosaurs’

English Literature Influenced Prize-Winning Paleontologist