My Beloved Brontosaurus: On the Road With Old Bones, New Science, and Our Favorite Dinosaurs by Switek Brian

Author:Switek, Brian [Switek, Brian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science, History
ISBN: 9780374135065
Amazon: 0374135061
Goodreads: 15793550
Publisher: Scientific American / Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Published: 2013-04-16T07:00:00+00:00

Seven

Dinosaur Feathers

Sometimes I get a little selfish about dinosaur skeletons. As thrilled as I am that museum dinosaur exhibits are so well attended, the stampeding hordes of schoolchildren and waves of parents pushing their stroller-bound kids through narrow exhibit pathways can be more than a little agitating. Walking through dinosaur displays at peak hours requires serious agility to avoid the swarms of little ones buzzing around the place. And that’s not to mention the fact that few people seem to read the museum labels—any sharp-toothed predator is a Tyrannosaurus, and every supersized sauropod is a “Brontosaurus.” I want to butt in and point out the correct names, but when I’ve done so, I have often been met with annoyed glares. Better to keep my mouth shut and let the families enjoy their time in the midst of the fossilized superstars. “Be nice,” I have to remind myself, “… you’re just one of those irrepressible dinosaur fanatics all grown up.”

I often watch the tide of visitors go by from the bench at the Natural History Museum of Utah’s paleontology lab. Behind a set of high glass windows, the other volunteers, technicians, and I go to work in a scientific fishbowl among tables stacked with fossils and covered in flecks of prehistoric rock. Sometimes I’ll be absorbed in my work—breaking off tiny pieces of sandstone from a fossil in the raw—and over the whine of the air-powered scribe I use to pick away at the encasing rock, I’ll hear a bang on the windowpane as a gaggle of kids catapults themselves onto the glass to get a better look. They’re so excited—until they realize that cleaning dead dinosaurs is a real pain in the ass, a war of millimeters between you and the matrix that surrounds the fossil bone.

On some afternoons, when the flow of museum patrons has ebbed, I take a few minutes to amble through the exhibit halls. The quiet of the vast, dim space reminds me of my first trip to see New York City’s grand dinosaurs. The osteological galleries are among the few places where I can tune out the various distractions, always just a tap away on my smartphone, and let my mind drift as I walk past a pack of Allosaurus poised on tiptoe and gaze up to the ludicrously long neck of the museum’s titanic Barosaurus. I feel at home among the dinosaurs.

And in those moments, I can’t help but wonder what the animals looked like when they were alive. Dinosaur skeletons are beautiful, exotic frameworks that supported flesh in life, and are the jumping-off point for my daydreams now. Fossil impressions of pebbly dinosaur skin fill in some of the details, but that’s just the canvas. Dinosaur color is another matter altogether. I can imagine sloshing buckets of polka-dot paint over the museum’s many-horned Utahceratops, but I doubt that in reality he would have looked so conspicuous. On the other hand, the traditional garb of drab green or gray isn’t very appealing, either. Maybe

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.