Philip Currie’s presentation, “Feathered Dinosaurs and the Origin of Birds,” will be held in the museum’s auditorium at 7 p.m., with a reception at 6:30 p.m. The lecture and multimedia slide-show is free and open to the public, and is appropriate for scientists and dinosaur lovers of all ages.
The evolution of birds from dinosaurs has long been a topic of enthusiastic debate among scientists. More recently, some of the most significant specimens for understanding the biological transition have been recovered from the Lower Cretaceous rocks (120-145 million years old) of northeastern China. The structure of the feathers and other details shown by these specimens have swayed most scientists to accept that birds are the direct descendants of meat-eating dinosaurs.
Although no dinosaur specimens have been found with preserved feathers in North America, many of the Late Cretaceous species from Alberta and other regions are closely related to the feathered dinosaurs of China. Currie recently identified a new type of dromaeosaurid, (a small raptor found in Alberta), which he named Atrociraptor marshalli. This meat-eating dinosaur adds to the diversity of dromaeosaurids, considered to be the closest non-avian relatives of the animal generally accepted as the“first bird,” Archaeopteryx. Currie’s description of the 70 million year old Atrociraptor is published in “Feathered Dragons: Studies on the Transition from Dinosaurs to Birds.” The book combines the scientific studies of 20 palaeontologists on the evolution of dinosaurs to birds. It contains two chapters by Currie, who also edited the scientific volume along with three associates.
According to Currie, feathers were probably widely distributed among meat-eating dinosaurs, and we can no longer be sure that fossilized feathers found in Cretaceous rocks all belong to birds. It is highly likely, in fact, that most of the Late Cretaceous theropods of the Northern Hemisphere, including tyrannosaurs, were feathered. Most evidence suggests that feathers were initially used for insulation and display. Regardless of the widespread presence of feathers in dinosaurs, the theory that birds evolved from dinosaurs is supported by more than 125 osteological characters that are uniquely shared by these two groups of animals.
Currie received a 2004 Michael Smith Award for outstanding achievement in the promotion of science in Canada. In addition to his position at the Royal Tyrrell Museum, Currie teaches at the University of Calgary and the University of Saskatchewan.
The North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in downtown Raleigh documents and interprets the natural history of the state of North Carolina through exhibits, research, collections, publications and educational programming.
