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SUMMARY:[CANCELLED] Birds of a Feather: the Deep History of Dinosaur Skin 
 - Prof Paul Barrett
DTSTART:20240129T180000Z
DTEND:20240129T193000Z
UID:TALK210058@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Drishtant Chakraborty
DESCRIPTION:[CANCELLED DUE TO ILL HEATLTH]\n\nFor decades it was assumed t
 hat all dinosaurs had scaly skin\, like that of their living reptilian rel
 atives\, an idea backed up by spectacular discoveries of complete 'mummifi
 ed' hadrosaurs. However\, the realisation that birds were direct descendan
 ts of small\, meat-eating dinosaurs led some to speculate that feathers co
 uld have presaged flight and might be found in close bird relatives. Begin
 ning in 1996\, a series of spectacular fossils was unearthed in ancient Cr
 etaceous lake deposits from northwest China. These animals\, with exquisit
 e skin preservation\, showed - without question - that many non-avian dino
 saurs possessed a variety of feather types. However\, as direct evidence o
 f skin structure is available only from rare Lagerstätte deposits that pr
 eserve soft tissue information\, which are formed under unusual geological
  conditions\, it's unclear when feathers first appeared. Moreover\, it's n
 ot known if feathers characterised all dinosaurs or just sub-groups thereo
 f. Other discoveries of feather-like structures across the dinosaur evolut
 ionary tree\, and in close dinosaur relatives like the flying reptiles (pt
 erosaurs)\, have further muddied the picture. A combination of evolutionar
 y modelling\, developmental biology\, geology and palaeontology is being u
 sed to try and answer this question\, which is fundamental to understandin
 g why and how feathers appeared.
LOCATION:Pfizer Lecture Theatre\,  Department of Chemistry\, Lensfield Roa
 d
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