I went for dinner last Thursday night with an Italian Palaeontologist from Bristol. I have to confess it was great. I love palaeontology and dinosaurs and one of the best books you can read (no, seriously) is The Dinosaur Hunters by Deborah Cadbury.
My paleontologist colleague works on the changes that occurred in the forelimbs of craniates (animals with heads) when they made their way up onto land. So, we spent the evening discussing the development of the apendicular skeleton and the features that allow you to adapt to life on land.
I used to work at The Natural History Museum in London and every morning I was greeted at the door at myt place of work by the skeleton of a diplodocus.
Now that was pretty cool.
BTW, the diplodocus’s name is dippy.
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Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackWow, it must have been awesome working at the The Natural History Museum in London, expecially with dinosaur skeletons. I loved dinosaurs when I was a kid and only realised when I was about seven I had been pronouncing diplodicus wrong. Still, lucky you seeing one every morning. The closest I have come to seeing any kind of dinosaur fossil was at a museum when I was a kid. It was part of a brachiosaur’s leg, the patella I think, I was fascinated at the time.