SCOTT D. SAMPSON: Good
evening, everybody.
It's a real pleasure to
be back here in Seattle.
I grew up just
north of the border
in Vancouver, British Columbia.
So it feels like coming
home to come back
to the Pacific Northwest.
And I've actually
spoken in this room.
And it's a wonderful place
to give a presentation.
So I thank you all for taking
time out of your busy lives
to come down and hear me talk
a little bit about dinosaurs.
Over the next few minutes,
I'm going to try and talk
to you about three things.
One is a project that I
started in the year 2000.
And it's in Southern Utah.
And it's yielded a whole
bunch of amazing dinosaurs
that tell us a lot about the
world of dinosaurs in general
and maybe something
about our own world.
The second thing I'll
do is talk about why
we should care about dinosaurs.
I mean, yeah, four- and
five-year-olds love them.
But why should we invest time
in doing research on them?
And why are so many adults
interested in dinosaurs?
So how many people
here think they'd
like to be a paleontologist
when they grow up?
And it's OK if you're a
grown-up putting your hand up.
[LAUGHTER]
Yeah.
There aren't many fields
where you could say that.
Right?
That all these kids aspire
to be paleontologists.
I was one of those kids.
This is me at the age
of four hugging what
would one day become the state
fossil of Colorado, where I now
work, stegosaurus.
And most kids, they
go through this phase
and then they grow
up and they go
on to become lawyers or doctors
or technicians or computer
specialists, whatever it is.
I just never grew up.
And so now I get to do
the kind of thing I wanted
to do since I was a little kid.
And there was a time in my
life when I could reliably
spell the word "paleontologist"
and not my last name.
So this is something
that's meant a lot to me.
So the very last thing
I'm going to do--
I said three things.
I'm going to talk to
you about work in Utah.
I'm going to talk
to you about why
we should care about dinosaurs.
And at the end, I'm going
to make a plea to all of you
based on some work that
I've been doing recently
about kids and nature.
So let me get things started.
When we think about
time, we think
about time in scales that
are very, very tiny--
a year, couple of years
maybe, maybe 10 years,
at the most 100 years.
100 years seems hard to believe.
Paleontologists daily have
to think in time scales that
are far beyond this.
So I want to walk you back in
time to look at Planet Earth
and watch it change in reverse.
So it's like showing a
movie, but in reverse.
So this is the way
the Earth looks today.
And of course, we can
all recognize here.
There's North America
and South America
and Africa and Europe
and Asia and Australia.
So we're somewhere up here.
Now, if we go back in
time only 50,000 years--
and you might say,
50,000, that's a lot.
But for a paleontologist,
that's yesterday.
50,000 years, things
look exactly the same
in terms of how the
Earth's continents are
compared to each other.
But you can see all
this white stuff.
That is the Ice Age,
50,000 years ago.
And if we go back, present day,
Ice Age, Present Day, ice age.
And there was enough
ice in Seattle
to bury the Space Needle easily.
Phenomenal.
Think about that we would
be under a mile of ice
thereabouts.
I mean, absolutely incredible.
So let's step back
further in time.
50,000 years, like
I said, that's
kind of yesterday
for a paleontologist.
Let's get more than 10
times, over 100 times back,
55 million years ago.
And now you can see,
things are starting
to change on the planet.
South America and Africa
are closer together.
North America and Europe are
closer together than they were.
Let's continue.
So this is still, dinosaurs long
extinct, 55 million years ago.
The last dinosaurs
are about 66 million,
with one exception
we'll talk about later.
Now, we go back to 90 million.
So we've almost
doubled that time.
And 90 million
years ago, you can
see that South America and Asia
are literally fitting together
like pieces in a puzzle.
North America is
underwater in its middle.
And I'll talk a bit more
about that in a minute.
And Europe is a series
of archipelagos.
And the other
thing you'll notice
is that there's
no polar ice caps.
There are none.
So today, we know we live in
a world that's warming up.
People call it global warming.
And yet, we are
still in an Ice Age.
We still have polar ice caps.
But we are heading to a
world that is more like this.
And when all that ice
melts, sea levels rise.
And that's what happens.
All these continents
get flooded by seas.
So this is 90 million years ago.
So let's take another
step back in the Jurassic,
150 million years ago.
Now, South America
and Africa are united.
But they're still separate
from the Northern Hemisphere.
And if we go one more
big step back in time
to 225 million years ago,
to the Triassic, which
is when dinosaurs first
appeared, you can see,
all the continents are united
in one giant super-continent.
And some smart kid
is going to tell me
the name of this
super-continent.
AUDIENCE: Pangea!
SCOTT D. SAMPSON:
Pangea, exactly right.
[LAUGHTER]
So that means that if you
were down here, sort of where
Argentina is today, you could
walk anywhere in the world
pretty much you want, with
a few exceptions of island
archipelagos.
And this is where
dinosaurs first appeared.
So the reason we find
dinosaurs on every continent,
including Antarctica, is not
because they swam or flew.
They walked.
Their ancestors walked
over all these land masses.
And then, as the land
masses came apart,
the dinosaurs just went
along for the ride,
like they were riding
on giant rafts.
So I want to focus now
on North America, which
is where I've done
a lot of research,
particularly over
the last 15 years.
Before that, I did a lot of
work in Africa and Madagascar
and places like that.
But I really want to
focus on North America.
And if we go--
this is 76 million years ago.
So once again, an age of
extreme global warming,
no ice caps, sea levels
much higher than today.
And there was a shallow
sea that went all the way
from the Arctic Ocean
to the Gulf of Mexico.
So North America was
not one landmass.
It was at least two.
The one in the west has
been named Laramidia.
And the one in the east
has been named Appalachia.
And there were sea monsters,
giant mosasaurs, which
are big lizards,
and plesiosaurs,
big, long-necked
things, swimming around
in these oceans, and
dinosaurs on land.
And it turns out
that if you want
to understand the
age of dinosaurs,
there is no better place to
look than this western landmass
that we are sitting
on right now,
which we now call Laramidia.
And that's because we have
fossils from this time
period, what's called the Late
Cretaceous, the end of the age
of dinosaurs, all the way
from Mexico in the south
to Alaska in the north.
And all these places
are producing fossils.
Most of them are on the
east side of the Rockies,
which is why it's
so cool that we
have Washington's first dinosaur
on the west side of the Rockies
up here.
You just don't
find many of those.
The rocks aren't around
to preserve them.
Or at least, they're
not exposed typically.
And I want to focus on
one part of this area.
And that's the state of Utah,
and a place in Southern Utah
known as Grand
Staircase-Escalante National
Monument.
If you've never heard of
it, it's not a big surprise.
But I bet you've heard of
all the places around it.
Grand Staircase makes up
about two million acres
of southern Utah.
It's the bulk of the
southern part of the state.
But it is surrounded by Zion
National Park, and Arches,
and Capitol Reef,
and Canyonlands.
All these national parks
almost form a necklace
around Grand Staircase.
But Grand Staircase, two million
acres, only about five roads,
to this day, go through it.
So it was the last area
in the lower 48 states
to be mapped, simply
because it's so rugged.
So when we think of Utah, we
think of red rock country,
places like this.
Back in the age of dinosaurs,
it was very, very different.
So if you were to go
to southern Utah today
and you were to drive
south of Grand Staircase
on this beautiful highway
towards Page, Arizona,
you would see rocks
of different colors
that look like giant
steps, literally
that a giant would take to
walk up the side of a hill.
And that is why it's
called the Grand Staircase.
It looks like a grand
staircase for giants.
And the rocks are
different colors
because they represent
different kinds of environments
that span the entire Mesozoic,
the entire age of dinosaurs.
So if we look at this
in a cross-section,
this is the south.
As I said, we were
looking down here before,
looking northwards.
And you can take
these big steps.
And each step has
a different color.
And the rocks where we're
going to be talking about,
which are from the Cretaceous,
are way up at the top here.
But down here is that Triassic,
and then we go Jurassic,
and then we go Cretaceous.
So we're going to be in rocks
right at the top of the Grand
Staircase.
And it's an amazing place.
When I first started working in
Utah, I was driven down there.
And I saw the Badlands.
And I thought, oh, my goodness.
And no one's really worked here?
And they said no, because
it's just so difficult
to get into and out of.
And it turns out they
were exactly right.
And it's worth the effort.
So imagine now, if you
could go back in time, 76,
77 million years ago.
What would it look like in Utah?
Well, depending
on where you were
and exactly when
you were there, it
might look something like this.
You could have had beautiful
beach front property in Utah
that is just balmy.
Somebody described it
as wall-to-wall Jamaica.
And I like that description.
So you would have seen these
giant pterosaurs, flying
reptiles, over your
beach-side house.
And if you were to wander out
in the backyard and head inland,
you would see this
kind of a look,
with big winding rivers
going through the flatlands,
heading towards mountains
to the west of you.
And if you were to zoom down
into this swampy wetland,
you would see a lot of
different kinds of animals,
including dinosaurs.
So let's have a look at
the panoply of dinosaurs
we might look at.
These are called the
cows of the Cretaceous.
They are duckbilled
dinosaurs, or hadrosaurs.
They grow up to about 30
feet long at this time,
in this place.
We found dozens of skeletons
of these things, most of them
with skin attached to them.
Incredible creatures.
They're are horned
dinosaurs as well wandering
around these wetlands.
This particular one
is a really weird one
that was found up in Montana.
But they all have these
bony bells and whistles
coming off their heads.
There are dome-headed dinosaurs
called pachycephalosaurs.
And these are not the Einsteins
of the dinosaur world.
That is solid bone in there.
The brain is much
smaller than my fists.
They're not doing calculus
or anything like that.
But they're amazing
creatures nonetheless.
All plant eaters so far.
Here, with these four-legged,
tank-like creatures
called ankylosaurs.
And they have bony armor
from the tips of their noses
to the tips of their tails.
And one group of them had a
club at the end of their tails
that may have been
used as a weapon.
Some of them had so much
body armor on their bodies
that their eyelids are bony.
So they could close their
eyes and protect their eyes.
Now, why would you need
so much protection?
Well, it's pretty easy to
see that this animal isn't
going anywhere quickly.
And it's living in a
world with tyrannosaurs.
So you better be able
to defend yourself.
And if you can't run
away, one technique
is to have lots of
armor, hunker down,
have a low center of gravity,
and just try and fight
your way through things.
And particularly,
once they're big,
they probably wouldn't have
been hassled too often.
So these are the big predators.
It's not T-rex.
This is millions of
years before T-rex.
But there were tyrannosaurs
all up and down Laramidia.
So they were the top
predators of the time.
And in addition to
these big carnivores,
there were a bunch of little
meat eaters, what we've now
affectionately called
raptor dinosaurs, thanks
to velociraptor
in Jurassic Park.
And they come in all kinds of
different sizes and shapes,
some with big sickle claws.
In fact, virtually all of
them have big sickle claws
on their feet.
But some are very little.
And some grew very,
very large, not so much
in North America though.
These are the fastest
dinosaurs of all.
They're called ornithomimosaurs,
or bird mimic dinosaurs.
And they do look a
lot like ostriches.
Right?
They were fast, maybe running
at speeds of 40 miles an hour
or so, something in that realm.
We're not really sure.
And we don't know
for positive sure,
but we think that they
may have been omnivores,
eating both animals and plants.
So this is the kind of thing
you would have seen looking out
your window if you had a house
on the coast of Laramidia
77 million years ago.
Now, starting in the
1960s, paleontologists
began to notice that
the dinosaurs they found
all the way from
Alberta down to Texas
were the same
groups of dinosaurs.
They always found tyrannosaurs
and horned dinosaurs and duck
bills, et cetera.
But they appeared to belong
to different species,
different organisms
at the species level.
So it's like having
different kinds of birds
or different kinds of big
mammals, like a black rhino
and a white rhino, for example.
But the strange thing was
that everywhere we looked,
there were different species.
So same groups, but different
kinds at that lower level,
which was very weird.
Because you have
to remember that
Laramidia is only
about 1/5 the size
of present day North America.
And it appeared that there
were well over two dozen
giant animals well
over 1,000 kilograms.
Now, compare that today
with Africa, where we think
of the big animals living.
There's only about five
species of animals in Africa
that exceed 1,000
kilograms, things
like elephants and giraffes
and rhinos and hippos,
only five covering
the whole continent.
Now, we're talking
about an area that's
1/5 the size that has well
over two dozen giant animals.
And there's a good
reason why there's not
so many today in Africa.
Some may have been
wiped out by us.
But there's other reasons.
And it has to do
with making a living.
There has to be
enough food to support
all those different species if
they're going to persist over
a long period of time.
So when I started
working in Utah,
there was a mystery
to be solved.
And that mystery was this.
How could so many different
kinds of giant animals
live together on such
a small chunk of land,
a little bit of real estate?
And when we thought
about it, we really
could come up with
only three reasons
to explain how you could have
different dinosaurs living
in Montana and Utah.
Why wouldn't they
be the same ones?
And our three reasons were--
these three possible solutions
were the dinosaurs maybe
didn't co-exist.
Maybe they lived
at different times.
Remember, we think in these
very short time frames.
Maybe these dinosaurs
appear different
just because we're
sampling periods that
are millions of years apart.
And maybe if we could really
sample the same time periods,
we would find that they would be
exactly the same animals, north
and south on Laramidia.
So that was one
hypothesis to be tested.
The second hypothesis
is that there
was just a whole lot
more food around back
then to support all these
different dinosaurs.
And the third hypothesis
is that dinosaurs didn't
eat as much to make a living.
So if they don't have
to consume as much food,
maybe there could be
more species around.
And you have to remember,
dinosaurs are reptiles.
And reptiles today
are cold-blooded.
And if you think
about cold-blooded
versus warm-blooded
animals, reptiles
are like the Toyota Priuses
of the animal world.
They don't need
to eat very often.
A crocodile can eat a meal, and
then not eat again for weeks.
A lion of the same
size eats and then
has to eat again
within a few days.
So mammals, like us, we're
the gas-guzzling SUVs
of the animal world.
We have to consume a lot of food
to keep our internal flames,
internal fire stoked.
So which were dinosaurs?
We don't know?
My guess is we're going
to know for pretty certain
within the next couple of years.
And I have strong
biases about it.
But we haven't been
able to demonstrate it
for sure one way or the other.
So keep these ideas in mind--
either the dinosaurs
lived at different times,
there was more food, or
they didn't eat as much--
as ideas to explain how you
get so many giants on one
chunk of land.
Now, imagine spending time
here, out in the field,
wandering up and down hills.
How many of you have actually
dug up a fossil in a place
you'd call Badlands?
Put your hands up.
A bunch of you.
That's great.
So you know what I'm
talking about here.
I've had a chance to work in
many places around the world.
And I've never worked
anywhere as difficult
as Grand Staircase-Escalante
National Monument.
Because the hills
are super steep.
And really, the only
place you find fossils
is in the valleys
and the ridges,
because you can't walk
the sides of the hills.
They're too steep.
So there's a whole lot of area
that's not available to you.
And you're walking these
steep hills wearing a backpack
in high winds, which makes it
just a little bit interesting
at times too.
So you can see why there's not
many roads through this place.
It's just, you couldn't do it.
And so you have to
do a lot of walking.
And you have to take
motley crews like this out
into the field with
you, people who
are willing to eat the same
food every day for a long time,
and hang out with each other,
and you know, bugs and heat
and all that stuff.
And there are people
who just love it.
And I have been one
of those people.
And I'm very proud to have had
a chance to go out and find
these amazing things.
Because the thing that
keeps you going out there
is the thought that you
may walk around the corner
and see something that
nobody has ever seen before,
that is like a
prehistoric Rembrandt
that no one's ever seen.
And you get to be the
first human ever to see it.
And that thought keeps you
going through the tough times.
Now, you've got to
get there first.
And because there's
only four or five roads,
you've got to take your
vehicles where you can.
And those roads get washed out.
We spend a lot of time repairing
roads, pulling boulders off,
and trying to put trees down
so we can drive through places.
But this is what
it's really like.
We do, as I say,
a lot of walking
up and down these hills.
For those of you who know Kirk
Johnson, Kirk is a Seattleite
and was here a few
years ago speaking.
This is Kirk right here,
walking up the hill.
He's been with us.
He's a plant paleontologist.
And he's one of the folks who's
been out with us in the field.
But you can get a real sense
of the 3D elements, that
to walk a mile in this landscape
can take you all day, depending
on the hills you have to cross.
Here's how you find the fossils.
And this is pretty typical
of paleontologists.
But for those of you
who haven't found them,
you typically look for
small fragments rolling down
the hill.
It's really rare to see that
complete skull of a T-rex
staring back at you
out of the hill.
That almost doesn't happen.
So what you find are
the fragments of rock.
And you trace those up
the hill, because they've
been washed down by water
and gravity and stuff.
And you look for more
bones in the hill.
If you find more
fossils, which doesn't
happen much of the time,
then you dig in further.
And if you find a
part of the skeleton,
that's when the
hard work begins.
And we have to haul out
jackhammers sometimes
to break through the rock.
And sometimes even
jackhammers can't do it,
and we bring in rock saws to
cut through the sandstone, which
is very, very hard.
But it's worth it
because these are
the sites that give you the
skin and the complete skeletons.
So we have to cut down.
And you have to do a lot
of guesswork and hope
that you're not cutting
through fossil as you do this.
And then eventually, you can
uncover a skeleton like this.
This is the mostly
complete skeleton
of a 30-foot-long
duckbilled dinosaur.
And you can see tail bones here.
And they're heading up towards
the front end of the head.
And beside it is
rock on both sides,
covered in skin impressions.
So we can actually
get a real sense
of what the skin looked
like all over the body
of these animals, which is
really quite remarkable.
And here's a close-up of those
skin impressions right here.
You can see the
little pebbly skin.
And it turns out,
the skin looks very
different on different parts of
the body, which we would never
know unless we had it
covering much of the body.
So really remarkable finds.
And this has become
common place for us
now to find these dinosaur
mummies, as they're called,
covered in skin.
That's when the real
work begins, of course,
because once you've
uncovered the fossils,
you've got to get them
out of the Badlands.
And since you can't back the
pickup truck up to the site,
you really, really need
graduate students out there.
[LAUGHTER]
And I was one of those
graduate students.
And I have the bad
back to prove it.
I woke up this morning,
and I was crooked.
And I was thanking paleontology
as I woke up and was
getting my back loosened up.
So if the fossils
are small enough,
you can put them in a backpack,
put it on the graduate student,
and just say, go, and
go back to the truck.
[LAUGHTER]
If it's bigger than that,
which they often are,
because we're talking
about dinosaurs,
you can strap it
down to a stretcher.
And all these people
are holding a stretcher.
And then you can get,
like, six or eight people
around the stretcher.
And you carry it out.
And you stop every 30 seconds to
a minute because you're tired.
And then you put it down, and
then you switch positions.
And then you pick it
up again and you go.
And you do that for half a day
to get one of these things out
of the Badlands.
If it's any bigger than
probably 150 pounds,
then you have to bring
in something else.
And that's when the
helicopters come in.
And we buy a fair bit of
helicopter time every year
to get these fossils
out, because there's
no other way of doing it.
And occasionally--
and this happened
to be one of the first
years we were working there,
we hired this helicopter.
And they can take about 1,000
kilograms, something like that,
1,000 pounds, I should say.
And we put this huge
duckbilled dinosaur in a net.
And the net's tied down there.
And the helicopter comes
down, and he drops the line.
And we hook it up,
and we say, OK, go.
And the pilot tried to
lift up the skeleton,
and he couldn't lift it.
It was still sitting there.
And it was barely
moving off the ground.
And I thought,
oh, man, I'm going
to have to hire a bigger
helicopter to move this thing.
But we had radios.
And the pilot said, hold on,
let me take some smaller things,
and we'll try again later.
And I was going, what?
I wasn't getting it.
So we took some smaller
nets full of fossils.
But the pilot, really knowing
his business, of course,
knew that if he
burned off some fuel,
the helicopter would
be lighter, and he
might be able to lift it.
And sure enough, he was able to
carry the duckbilled dinosaur.
And they fly it out.
And there's a pick-up truck
waiting at the closest road.
And they gently place the fossil
into the back of the pickup,
or a flatbed.
And then you drive it
back to the museum.
Absolutely phenomenal.
And back at the
museum, as here, people
with the patience of
saints, known as volunteers,
will prepare the fossils.
And sometimes it takes years
to prepare a single fossil.
Volunteers, we are one
of the few sciences
where we would be
literally dead in the water
without volunteers.
How many people here have
volunteered in paleo and stuff?
So would you just give
these people a hand?
Because it's a big deal.
[APPLAUSE]
Thank you.
Truly, we could not advance our
science without the volunteers.
Because there's just
so much work to do.
And they help us
find the fossils,
dig them up, carry them
out, prepare the fossils,
study the fossils, and even
help us publish papers on them
at times.
So it's really phenomenal.
So I want to show
you now the kinds
of things we have found
in Grand Staircase.
Some of these duckbilled
dinosaurs are there.
And this one was a
brand new species
we called gryposaurus
monumentensis, named
after the monument, big
Jimmy-Durante-type nose
at the front, those of you who
can remember Jimmy Durante.
Sorry, I'm just aged
myself pretty good there.
Big nose there and
eyeball, this battery
of hundreds and hundreds
of teeth behind, and a beak
up front.
We found a few different
duckbilled dinosaurs, including
a big tubed one called
parasaurolophus,
that all you kids will know,
and all you adults won't know.
And that's OK.
Let them know that.
We have found a series
of horned dinosaurs.
And as Chris mentioned,
this is the group
that I have worked on
the most in my career.
And I've been very fortunate
working in this place.
We were feeling particularly
imaginative on this day.
It was a relative
of triceratops.
And it's from Utah.
So we call it utahceratops.
Of course, we did.
But just to give
you-- oops, sorry.
I want to go back.
Utahceratops, the skull is over
seven feet tall, so that tall,
just the head.
The biggest heads of
these horned dinosaurs
get close to 10 feet tall.
They are the biggest heads
of any land-living animals
that have ever lived,
as far as we know.
And utahceratops is like that.
And much of the skull is
made up of these bones
that go back behind the head.
And you have the same bones,
basically, in your head.
Imagine if you took
the top of your head
and stretched five
feet behind you,
that's what utahceratops did.
Crazy.
This is another animal
called nasutoceratops.
And the name basically
means, big nose, horned face,
which kind of sounds
like an insult,
but is really accurate for this
animal, big nose, horned face.
It looks like a bull with
the horns coming forward.
This one has a shorter
frill, a narrow crest,
and a very short face.
And then there is my
favorite, kosmoceratops.
So triceratops, three horns.
Yeah, OK.
It's pretty cool.
Kosmoceratops, blows it away.
15 horns on its head.
One on the nose, one on each
cheek, one over each eye,
and 10 across the back.
And that doesn't even count
the little bony doodads
on the side of
the skull as well.
[LAUGHTER]
So kosmoceratops
is pretty amazing.
And then I get to tell you--
I'm actually very happy.
I get to tell you something that
no other people on the planet
know except you in
about 30 seconds.
[LAUGHTER]
So two days ago, I was
finishing up my workday.
And my workday now,
it's really not anything
like Indiana Jones.
It's really not
a romantic thing.
I sit in meetings
most of my day now.
So it was at the end of
a long day of meetings,
and another of the
paleontologists, Joe,
came into my office.
And he said, Scott, you've
got to come with me.
And I said-- I just
wanted to go home.
It was, like, 4:30, 5 o'clock.
I just wanted to go.
He said, no, no, no.
You've got to come.
So he drags me.
And we go to this lab,
where they've just
opened a big plaster
jacket, as it's
called, with a skull in it.
And we knew it was a horned
dinosaur with big horns.
And we thought we
knew what it was.
But he opened it up.
And he said, what do you think?
And I just looked at this.
And I went, oh, my god.
It is brand new.
No one has ever seen this thing.
Now, keep in mind, we've already
named these three dinosaurs
that lived at the same time,
utahceratops, nasutoceratops,
and kosmoceratops.
No one's ever found a place
with three of these things
living at the same time.
Well, we now have a fourth one.
And it's got these very short
jaws and a super long frill,
long horns on its head, very
different from this thing.
And so that's my next project.
So we haven't even
got a name for it yet.
And I'm excited to be
able to tell you folks.
You're the first
people in the world
to hear about this new dinosaur
that has yet to be named.
So wait.
It might take us a couple of
years, but that's pretty cool.
[APPLAUSE]
All right, what
else have we got?
Little dinosaurs.
This one was called talos.
It was described by one
of my graduate students
who very kindly
named it after me.
So it's actually talos sampsoni.
Not talos drscotti or whatever.
So here's the deal with fossils.
You never name them
after yourself.
That's really
uncool and uncouth.
But you can name them for lots
of different other reasons,
what they look like, where
they're found, who found it.
I once named a dinosaur
after a rock star.
Long story.
I'll tell you later
if you're interested.
It was really a bad idea.
But this is talos, a little
raptor dinosaur, also named
for a Greek god, or
sorry, and Egyptian god.
This is a tyrannosaur So we've
got a tyrannosaur here too.
But it is different than
any other tyrannosaur
found anywhere else.
Teratophoneus, it's called.
So this is the suite of things.
So once again, the same
groups of dinosaurs as
found up and down in Laramidia,
but different species.
And for those of you who are
biologists, different genera
and species.
So tyrannosaurus rex, two
names, tyrannosaurus and rex,
they represent the
genus and the species.
Both of them were new
in most of these cases.
So we all of a sudden
had this ecosystem
that we were trying
to put together.
And I worked with an artist,
actually, that many of you
might know about,
who did Dinotopia.
This is James Gurney.
And he did this reconstruction
of teratophoneus attacking
this gryposaurus, this
duckbilled dinosaur,
based on modern lions attacking
antelope and things like that.
So it's fun working
with these artists.
Here is one of my
favorite pieces of art.
People get really
impressed by dinosaurs
and how big and
wonderful they are.
So imagine that your
name is teratophoneus,
and you're a tyrannosaur,
and you lived
in Utah 77 million years ago.
And imagine you're thirsty.
OK?
And you have to go and
get a drink of water.
And imagine, as you're going
to get a drink of water--
you're a big tyrannosaur.
Everybody's afraid of you.
But you're nervous,
because you know
that you might go to
take a drink of water
and a 40-foot-long
crocodile might lurch out
of the water to grab you.
This is deinosuchus.
Thank you, deinosuchus.
Sorry, I should have asked.
Bigger than any of the
carnivorous dinosaurs,
bigger than any
dinosaur in this place.
So that's the kind of
thing that was also
living in southern Utah,
an absolutely phenomenal.
Different world than what
we see today, obviously.
In addition, we are collecting
every kind of animal and plant
that we can.
So we have paleontologists
who specialize not just
in dinosaurs, but in turtles.
And we've got small turtles.
And we've got
beautiful big turtles.
A few years ago, I was out
in Grand Staircase digging
for fossils.
And I found about a
third of a turtle.
And it was one of
these huge turtles.
And it was the first time anyone
had found a big chunk of it
before.
And I was pretty
proud of this thing.
And we collected the whole
thing and every scrap
that we found on the hill.
And we took it back
to the prep lab.
The very next year, a young
kid who was out with us,
kid went and found a site with
about six complete turtles
with limb bones.
And one of them had eggs in it.
I mean, absolutely phenomenal.
Made the find that I found
look pathetic by comparison.
You could kind of
just throw it away.
But these things are phenomenal.
And no one has ever seen a
complete one of these things,
Basilemys turtles before.
And I just saw another one
the other day, two days ago
in the lab.
And the animal had died.
It retracted its head.
And its feet were sticking out.
They had little armored
pads on the bottom.
And the whole skull is there.
Absolutely phenomenal.
We also find lots
of little animals.
Mammals are represented in
this place primarily by teeth.
And mammal paleontologists--
keep in mind, mammals
appeared with dinosaurs about
225, 230 million years ago
or thereabouts
with the dinosaurs.
But mammals didn't
get any bigger
than about this for the
entire Mesozoic era.
It wasn't until the
big extinction event
66 million years ago.
And after that, mammals
blossomed into all the things
we know today.
So when we find mammals
from the age of dinosaurs,
often they're
represented by teeth,
tiny little teeth that tell
us what kinds of critters
lived there.
And we have found well over
two dozen different mammals.
And most of them are new.
They're different than anything
that's been found before.
The same is true of the plants.
We have a number
of paleo-botanists,
or ancient plant experts.
And there are tons
of different plants.
And there's plants that
appear to have made vines.
And these vines typically
today are grown only
in places that are extremely
lush and tropical and diverse.
And this has made us wonder
about the environment
that these animals were in.
And really, it was much like
a Louisiana swamp in Utah back
in the Cretaceous.
And so this has got us
thinking, well, maybe the world
was very different back then.
Maybe in a hothouse world,
where it's much warmer
and there's no polar ice caps,
maybe the greatest diversity
of animals and plants
isn't at the poles,
where it might be hotter.
Maybe it's at
mid-latitudes like Utah.
Because what we're finding is
a super diverse ecosystem that
lived 77 million years ago.
So really interesting.
So now, we can just go and
put the dinosaurs back in it.
This is a reconstruction
of kosmoceratops,
that horned dinosaur
with 15 horns,
living in this swampy setting,
almost like a cypress swamp.
And if we think now, going back
to North America being split
into two and Laramidia over on
the west, what we are seeing
is different
communities of dinosaurs
living at different latitudes,
at least up in Alberta
and down in Utah.
So we had those three
hypotheses, if you remember.
One was, they weren't
really different,
they just lived at
different times.
The second was that there
was a lot more food around.
And the third hypothesis was
that they didn't eat as much.
Well, we can now rule
out the first hypothesis.
We've been able
to date the rocks.
And it's what's called
radiometric dating.
It's little pieces of
volcanic ash you can take out.
And you can look at the rate
of decay from one unstable form
into a stable form and
compare those and get a sense
of how old these rocks are.
And it turns out that
the rocks in Utah
are the same age as
some rocks in Alberta.
Totally different dinosaurs.
So we can rule
out the hypothesis
that they lived at
different times.
And that means it's either
with the more food, or them
not eating as much.
And my bias is that there was
probably more food around.
And it could be-- my bias
also is that dinosaurs
may have had an intermediate
kind of metabolism that
was neither hot-blooded nor
cold-blooded, but somewhere
in the middle, what I've called
the Goldilocks hypothesis,
not too hot, not too
cold, just right.
And maybe they didn't
need to eat as much.
Because it turns out
that most of the energy
that we consume in
the form of food
is lost to the
environment as heat.
So really inefficient.
And maybe dinosaurs had a more
efficient kind of metabolism.
But that has yet
to be demonstrated.
That is just Dr. Scott
talking at this point.
So we're starting to understand
this ancient world in a new way
that we never could have
without these fossils coming out
of Utah.
And the amazing thing
is that most things
that we can identify down
to the level of species
are new to science.
So something for all
the kids in the room.
Anyone who wants to be a
dinosaur paleontologist?
AUDIENCE: I do!
AUDIENCE: I do!
SCOTT D. SAMPSON: Really?
OK.
So it's important to remember,
if you want to be a dinosaur
paleontologist, if you're
a kid, when you grow up,
there are still going to be
amazing discoveries to make,
things that no one's
ever found before.
There have been more dinosaurs
discovered in the past 25
or 30 years than in
all prior history.
And there are still
many, many dinosaurs
being discovered all the time.
Virtually every single week,
we announce a new dinosaur.
So remember that.
And here's another thing.
This kind of bugs me about
how we talk about science.
So I'm just going to
get this off my chest.
We often teach science like
it's out of a textbook,
like it's a whole
bunch of facts.
And it's just people
have figured it out,
and the world's already known.
And you just go
through the books,
and you read what
scientists have figured out.
Let me tell you that
that is not true,
that in virtually
every area of science,
people are making fundamental
discoveries all the time.
So whether you want
to be a paleontologist
or some other
ologist, there will
be amazing discoveries for
you to make when you grow up.
So if you want to be a
scientist, remember that.
It's not just about
adding little tidbits
to this giant textbook.
It's about figuring
out fundamental things.
OK, now, I told you
that I was going
to talk about why you
should care about dinosaurs.
So let me start with
this really bad day
65 million years ago,
when a giant rock
about 10 kilometers
across slammed
into the Gulf of Mexico,
caused a shockwave.
It came in from south to
north, hit the Gulf of Mexico
near the Yucatan, and
sent a shockwave northward
that wiped out trees and
animals, everything else.
It then disintegrated a
big chunk of the Earth
and sent pieces of
itself and the Earth
up into the atmosphere.
And then a bunch of
that rained back down,
causing a heat pulse.
And if you think about seeing
a shooting star at night,
that shooting star
often is not much bigger
than a speck of dust.
But if you take that matter
and convert it into pure energy
as it comes into the
atmosphere, it fluoresces.
It makes a big bright light.
Well, imagine if you take
a big chunk of the Earth
and send it into the atmosphere
and rain it back down.
The thought is that there would
be a heat pulse that also would
make it pretty difficult for
life, at least in that part
of the world.
And there were fires, and there
were all kinds of other things.
So as I said, a really bad day.
Everything alive today
is a direct descendant
of animals and plants
that survived that event.
And that is true of
every major extinction
in the history of life.
So there is an unbroken
line of mothers
that goes from you back
well over 100 million years.
Now, that's a
phenomenal thought.
We are all tied to
those organisms that
survived these big
events like this one that
took out the dinosaurs.
So dinosaurs can tell us
about mass extinction.
And you may have
heard the news that we
may be heading for another mass
extinction, except this time,
humans are the
asteroid on a collision
course with the Earth.
And this time, we have a
choice about whether it happens
or not, and we have time
to turn things around.
So by understanding
the age of dinosaurs
and how life responded
after a mass extinction,
we can think about that.
And Chris Sidor and his team
work on mass extinctions
and how life responded
to the biggest
mass extinction of all time.
And that work is
happening right here
at the University of Washington.
So looking at dinosaurs can also
tell us about a warming planet.
And as I mentioned before,
we're still in an ice age.
And that is the unusual
state for the Earth.
For most of Earth history,
Earth has been a planet
without polar ice caps, what
we call a hothouse world.
So global warming is the
norm, in other words.
And by looking at how
the planet responded,
we can figure out
where we're heading.
If you want to understand
how the Earth is going
to respond in a
warming phase, you
can't go anywhere
on Earth and figure
that out today because
we're still in an ice age.
So you have to go back in time
and look at periods of time
when the Earth was
much, much hotter
and then look at how animals
and plants and other things
responded in that warming world.
And that's one of the
things that we've been
trying to figure out in Utah.
And our preliminary
evidence suggests
that ecology and evolution
actually work differently
in a hothouse world than
in a ice-house world, which
is pretty interesting.
And I won't go into
that anymore right now.
But the other thing that
dinosaurs can help us with
is this amazing story
that hardly anybody
knows in enough detail.
And this story is the
story of all of us.
This is a story that begins
over 13 billion years ago
with the origin of
stars and galaxies
and then planets, which
led to the origin of life,
single-celled life, and
then multicellular life,
and ultimately,
things like dinosaurs,
and then finally,
things like birds.
We don't teach this story.
And I have to credit
local boy, Bill Gates, who
has been putting money into
trying to get this story told
in high schools.
This is arguably the most
important contribution
of science.
It's a story we didn't even
know three decades ago.
We didn't know about how
everything was connected
to everything else,
and how you had
to have hydrogen and helium
before you could have stars,
and you had to have stars
before you could have heavier
elements, and you had
to have those heavier
elements before you
could have planets,
and you had to have planets
before you could have
the kind of chemistry you get
on planets that allows for life,
and you had to have
single-celled life before you
could have multicellular life.
So Carl Sagan was right.
We are made of star stuff.
And that is
absolutely phenomenal.
But we are equally made of Earth
stuff, the stuff of the Earth.
We are made of bacterial stuff.
We're made up of all the parts
that have led to us being here
today.
And just in case you
think of yourself
as a separate organism, sitting
in your seat as one organism,
let me tell you something
that may surprise you.
And this is, once again,
a scientific discovery
that's only about
10, 15 years, old,
that you have about 100
trillion cells in your body,
100 trillion.
A big number, we
can't even imagine it.
But over 90 trillion of
those cells, over 90%,
are not human cells.
They are bacterial and they
are fungal cells, which
makes you less than 10% human.
[LAUGHTER]
It also means that there
are more living things
in and on you than there
are people on Earth,
than there are stars in
the Milky Way Galaxy.
You are not a single organism.
You are a bipedal colony.
[LAUGHTER]
Now, that may make you want
to, like, run out the door
and go have a long shower.
Right?
[LAUGHTER]
But you need all these things.
They help you digest the
food that you have tonight.
They keep away invaders.
And it turns out that
the more we find out
about this thing we call the
microbiome, the more amazing
it is.
And it turns out
that medicine now
may have been looking in
many of the wrong places
to find cures for certain
things that they may have
to do with the interaction
between this microbiome,
these trillions of
microorganisms, and ourselves.
So this is a whole
new field that is just
beginning to be explored.
And it all it is all part
of this amazing story that
leads up to us being here
at this moment, which
is a story that's unfinished.
The decisions that you
and I make tomorrow
will help determine the outcome
of this story that's been
going on for 14 billion years.
Now, I mentioned that there's
a relationship between birds
and dinosaurs.
So I'm going to
tell you something
that may rock your world.
And you might wonder, how
can a paleontologist tell you
anything that can
rock your world?
They're only interested
in things that
have been dead for a long time.
But the reality is, based
on what we understand now,
this hummingbird is a dinosaur,
that eagles, owls, albatrosses,
all dinosaurs, that these
birds, in fact, flying
around our backyards, they
are not closely related
to dinosaurs.
In the same way that we call
elephants mammals because they
have features that make them
mammals, birds are dinosaurs.
So if that's true, there's
a certain few things
that are kind of interesting.
First of all, that
means that if you
like to eat chicken
or turkey, you
like to eat dinosaur,
which is pretty cool.
[LAUGHTER]
Kids love that, by the way.
It also means that it answers
a problem that paleontologists
have been thinking
about for a long time,
and now, we finally know--
what do dinosaurs taste like?
Chicken.
Thank you.
[LAUGHTER]
It also means there are about
10,000 living species compared
to about 6,000 of mammals.
Dinosaurs still rule the world.
[LAUGHTER]
Right?
Which is pretty phenomenal.
No, no, you can clap on that.
That's great.
[APPLAUSE]
I love that, being a
dinosaur paleontologist.
So--
[LAUGHTER]
So there's lots of reasons
to care about dinosaurs.
But I want to finish
with one last one.
And it's the last
point I wanted to make.
And that is that we
need to connect people
with the natural world.
And I am going to
argue that it is
one of the most pressing and
overlooked issues of our time.
If you were to survey scientists
on the University of Washington
campus and say, what are
the most pressing issues
of our time, you
would hear answers
like global warming,
species extinction, habitat
destruction.
And they would all be correct.
And I would say they
would be missing
a fundamental one, which is
the disconnect between people
and nature.
We need to get people
connected with nature.
I do this show.
How many people have
seen Dinosaur Train?
Put your hands up.
Wow.
OK, I'll tell you.
I'll do a quick little
vignette, and I'll come back
to the kids in nature.
I'll tell you a little
story about Dinosaur Train.
So I was working at home.
I was living in
California at the time.
And I was at home one day,
looking out at the ocean.
And I get this phone call.
And it's an executive from
the Jim Henson company.
And you don't get these
phone calls every day.
Right?
And she says, hey, we're
doing this show on dinosaurs.
We're going to put it on PBS.
Are you interested
in being part of it?
And I said, well, that
sounds pretty cool.
What's it called?
And she said, oh, it's
called Dinosaur Train.
And I said, you
can't call it that.
And she said, well, why not?
And I said, because I'm
a paleontologist that
studies dinosaurs.
We're always trying
to convince people
that humans and dinosaurs
didn't live at the same time.
You can't go sticking
them both on trains.
This isn't The Flintstones
anymore, right?
And she said, no, no, no.
We're only going to put
dinosaurs on the train.
[LAUGHTER]
And I thought--
I stopped and I thought,
well, that is just brilliant.
Right?
[LAUGHTER]
That's like chocolate
and peanut butter
if you're five years old.
And so I said, I'm in.
This is great.
And so we've done
Dinosaur Train.
But even back then,
I had this thing
about getting kids outside.
And I thought, oh, my goodness.
If I get involved with
a television program
that addicts kids even more
to screens, that's a problem.
So I negotiated to say something
about getting kids out nature.
And my wife came
up with the line
that I say at the end of every
single episode of Dinosaur
Train.
Some of you probably know
it if you've seen the show.
It's get outside.
Get into nature.
And make your own discoveries.
Now, I'll be honest.
I had no clue if
a television show
could encourage kids to turn
off the TV and go outside.
That was an untried experiment.
But six years later,
seven years later,
I'm very happy to report that
it's been a great success.
I've heard from
hundreds of parents
who tell me about their
kids, little Billy
out there digging holes in the
backyard looking for fossils.
I'm sure the parents
love me for that.
Right?
And then little
Janey's out there
looking at dinosaurs flying
around in the trees and stuff.
The kids are getting outside,
in part because of the show,
which is great.
And that's exactly what
we really hoped for.
And it's been so
successful that we've
made it a central theme
on Dinosaur Train.
And that was so
successful that PBS is now
launching other shows that
are featuring the need
to get kids out into nature.
But I just want to underline
this for all of you.
Because you may not know the
severity of the situation.
So here's the data.
The average American kid
today spends seven to 10 hours
every day looking at
screens, seven to 10 hours.
A study was done a few years
ago, and it was seven hours.
And they thought,
oh, my goodness.
That's incredible.
That can't be right.
And they did it again,
and it was closer to 10.
It was actually
going up because kids
were multitasking and
looking at multiple screens
at the same time.
Over seven hours a day.
That same average
American child spends
on the order of seven minutes
a day playing outdoors.
Now, how many of you
grownups can remember playing
outside when you were a kid?
Put your hands up.
Yeah.
And if I were to ask you to
remember a time or a place that
was super meaningful to you as a
kid, I bet well over 95% of you
would name a place
that's outside.
So now, imagine a
generation from now,
somebody standing here, asking
an audience that same question.
And imagine if 95%
of the people pick
a place that's inside because
they never go outside anymore.
Richard Louv wrote about
the last child in the woods,
that maybe if we're the
last generation to do this,
and so if we don't
change it around,
there's going to be a
last child in the woods.
We are the last
generation in the woods,
the last generation that grew
up remembering what it was like.
I distinctly remember
growing up in Vancouver,
just north of the border.
Saturday morning, my mother
would say, get on out inside.
Go outside and play.
And I'm pretty
positive I remember
hearing the door being locked
behind me as I went outside.
[LAUGHTER]
And it was just like,
you just come back
at the end of the day.
And that was all good.
That doesn't happen anymore.
And there's all kinds of reasons
that we don't need to go into.
But there's good reason
to get kids outside.
It is critical for their mental
health, emotional health,
physical health.
And there's a bunch
of data to back it up.
This is what we need.
We need kids who
love nature, who
want to go outside and play.
And this past year,
I published a book.
And I had the pleasure
of coming to Seattle.
And I told a few
other people earlier,
I did a National Book
Tour to support this.
And I got the strongest
positive reception
in Seattle of anywhere
in the country.
So you all are to
be congratulated.
This place is aware of
the importance of nature
and getting folks outside.
And they recognized
that this is a problem.
So all you kids, make sure you
ask the grown-ups in your life
if you can go out and play.
And all you grownups, make
sure that you get kids outside.
It is one of the greatest
gifts that you can give them
and could be life changing
not just for the kids,
but for the planet,
for the places we live.
Because let's face it.
Why is anyone going to
become sustainable and worry
about global warming
or species extinctions
if they don't spend
any time outside?
A screen looks the
same in Seattle
as it does in San Diego
or St. Louis or Timbuktu.
The only way we're going
to care about these places
is to go outside.
And even places
like national parks,
those decisions to
keep those places are
made by every generation.
And if kids don't get outside
and connect with nature,
why are they going to keep
those places in the future?
So this is a really
critical issue of our time.
And we need to raise
awareness on it.
So I'll do a few
acknowledgments here
with Grand Staircase,
the National Science
Foundation, et cetera.
I also want to acknowledge
the artists that
produced the paleo art.
They help bring these
dinosaurs to life in ways
that us artistically
challenged people
can't do in the same way.
And so I really
want to acknowledge
all of their efforts.
And lastly, I just want to
thank all of you for being here
tonight.
I really appreciate it.
I know that it's a big deal
to come out and spend time
listening to a presentation.
And I appreciate the fact
that you all came tonight.
So thank you very much.
And I'm happy to
answer any questions
you want to throw at me.
[APPLAUSE]
AUDIENCE: But before we
gather those questions,
I guess I'll ask a
question first off.
But I don't want to take
any kids' thunder on which
question to ask.
So I guess I'll ask, what's
your favorite dinosaur, Scott?
SCOTT D. SAMPSON: You
weren't listening.
I talked about that in the talk.
So my favorite dinosaur
is that kosmoceratops
one, the one with 15 horns.
And if I were to ask all the
kids in the audience, OK,
so how many people
think that T-rex
is their favorite dinosaur?
Put your hands up.
There's a bunch of them.
It's the same wherever I go.
And I've always
found this amazing
that kids, when they're asked
what their favorite dinosaur
is, they pick an animal
that was over 40 feet
long that you would
not want to meet
in a dark alley
or anywhere else,
like one of the biggest terrors
ever to walk the planet.
And they go, yeah, that's
my favorite, absolutely.
So yes.
AUDIENCE: So we have
one question from,
I think it's Anna.
Thanks for being here.
SCOTT D. SAMPSON: And you
have some water around,
that'd be great.
AUDIENCE: Anna asks, how can
you be sure that a fossil is
a different species?
SCOTT D. SAMPSON:
So the question is--
and we were talking before.
Kids ask the best
questions always.
How can you tell that one
dinosaur is a different species
from another?
And the easiest
answer is to say,
that's why you go to school
for a very long time.
But that doesn't really cut it.
So the deal is, if
you find a dinosaur,
you have to compare it--
first of all, you have to figure
out what group it belongs to.
And if it's a horned
dinosaur, then you
have to go look at the
other horned dinosaurs,
and look at their features, and
see if this thing is different.
And what's really interesting
is that not all the dinosaurs
of a single species
look the same.
If we could just take all
of the people in this room
and fossilize you and
have people dig us
up in about 10 million
years, what they would find
is, if they just said
randomly sampled the room,
they'd find a lot
of different looks.
Right?
Some of us are little.
Some of us are big.
Some of us are big-boned.
Some of us are smaller boned.
So if you're going to
understand a species,
you have to understand
some of the variation
within that species.
And it's one of the
problems with dinosaurs
that many, arguably
most, dinosaurs are known
from one or two specimens.
So it's hard to know
whether something is really
a distinct species,
or whether it's just
a variation of
something that's known.
But there are ways to tell.
And some of it has to do with
those horns and crests and all
the weird things
that dinosaurs have.
Because typically, if
they're really different.
It's really unusual
in the modern realm
to see the same species with
lots of different bony things
on its head.
So if those things
are different,
probably you're using
the same features
to identify the species that the
animals did millions of years
ago.
AUDIENCE: OK,
Jonathan from Seattle
asks, were there any
tree-living dinosaurs?
SCOTT D. SAMPSON:
Oh, that's great.
So where's Jonathan?
Put your hand up, Jonathan.
Right here.
OK.
Were there any
tree-living dinosaurs?
So when most of us grew
up, we thought of dinosaurs
like brontosaurus,
these big, giant things.
We thought they lived in swamps,
which, of course, turned out
to be all wrong.
And there was only a
handful of dinosaurs known.
Nowadays, the kids
growing up who
are watching things
like Dinosaur Train
know about animals
like microraptor.
Microraptor's about yea big,
maybe a little bit bigger
than a raven.
Dinosaur, it had wings,
feathers and wings.
It didn't just have
wings on its front limbs.
It had wings on
both sets of limbs.
So four wings.
Maybe it didn't fly.
We don't know for sure.
But it may have used
the wings for gliding,
which is pretty phenomenal.
It had claws it could
use to climb trees,
and it probably ate insects.
So I can promise you,
when I was a kid,
no one ever ever spoke about
dinosaurs that lived in trees,
that had feathers,
that ate insects.
It just didn't happen.
And nowadays, that is the norm.
And there is, in fact,
probably a number
of dinosaurs that
lived in trees,
and lots of dinosaurs that
were really quite little.
So it's really common
now to find them.
So we've learned a lot
just in the past 25 years.
OK.
AUDIENCE: Lucia
from Seattle asks,
does anyone know for
sure if T-rex had fur?
SCOTT D. SAMPSON: Wow, does
anyone know if T-rex had fur?
So why would we even
think T-rex has fur?
What they really mean by fur
is kind of little feathers,
because it turns out--
once again, we didn't
even know that there
was such a thing as
a feathered dinosaur
until the last generation.
And it started in
China, when people
started uncovering these
amazing dinosaurs with feathers.
And they were able
to show that it
was a whole lot of different
groups of dinosaurs,
particularly from the family
that T-rex and velociraptor
are in, called theropods.
A whole lot of these theropods
had feathers, so many,
in fact, that we
think that that was
the norm, the primitive
condition, that all
of these things may have
had feathers, which means
T-rex may have been feathered.
The problem with feathers
is they hold in heat.
And that's why we put feathers
in things like down jackets,
because they actually
keep you warmer.
And if you're really big,
if you're 40 feet long
and you weigh five
tons or something,
you don't want to be
holding on to heat.
Your problem, if you're
big, is getting rid of heat.
So it's really
unlikely that T-rex
was covered in thick feathers.
But it's possible that
baby rexes had feathers.
And it's possible the adults had
some kind of feather-like fur
on their bodies, something
that, once again,
no one even contemplated
a generation ago.
So great question.
AUDIENCE: OK, two more
questions, and then we'll
do some book signing.
So Marina asks, what's your
favorite Dinosaur Train
character?
SCOTT D. SAMPSON: My favorite
Dinosaur Train character.
Well, first of all, I'll
answer a related question,
because I was just
asked this recently.
And no one ever asked me this.
People always ask me what's
my favorite dinosaur.
But someone asked me, what's
your least favorite dinosaur?
And I stopped, and I thought,
wow, how do you get that one?
I had to give that
a lot of thought.
And m I just said--
it came to me.
It was obvious
when it came to me.
Barney is my least
favorite dinosaur.
[LAUGHTER]
I really struggle with Barney.
But in terms of my favorite
character from Dinosaur Train,
if you've seen the
show, you might know.
We put content in
there for adults.
So we try and do a little
bit of the Pixar thing
where we put content in that
only the adults will get.
And there is a dinosaur
from Antarctica
called cryolophosaurus, which
has a crest on its head,
and we've nicknamed
Elvis-saurus,
because it's like Elvis
having the pompadour.
And so we took cryolophosaurus,
and we gave it--
hey, how's it going?
Thank you very much.
And so he talks, and he moves
his hips like Elvis and sing.
And he does the whole thing.
And so The King is his name.
The King cryolophosaurus
is my favorite character
from Dinosaur Train.
AUDIENCE: Lizzie
from Kirkland asks,
what was the biggest dinosaur
discovery that we've learned
that now we know is wrong?
What's a discovery that's
made something totally wrong?
SCOTT D. SAMPSON: What
was the big discovery
we learned, and we
then thought was wrong.
I mean, I think we have
thought a lot of wrong things
about dinosaurs over time.
And it's a problem where,
when most of your evidence
typically is bones
and teeth, you
can make up a lot of stories.
It's like that
brontosaurus thing.
We used to think they lived
in swamps because they
were so big, we thought they
couldn't support themselves
on land.
And it turns out to
be completely wrong.
They were like elephants.
And they had these
big straight limbs
that could support
huge amounts of weight.
And so that was one of
the ideas, certainly,
that was considered the
norm for a long time.
Another one is the fact that
all these horns on triceratops
and things like that,
for a long time,
they were thought to be
weapons to defend themselves
against big
carnivorous dinosaurs.
But no one really ever bothered
to go and compare dinosaurs
with animals living
today that have horns.
And it turns out, there's
lots of animals with horns
and horn-like features,
like antlers on deer,
and horns on an
antelope, beetles
with horns, ants with horns.
And it turns out that they use
these horns almost invariably,
first and foremost, to
fight with each other.
And it's usually about sex.
It's usually about
competing for mates, what
Darwin called sexual selection.
And the horns are used
sometimes to lock together
and to have these
contests of dominance.
And it doesn't mean that
horned animals will never
use their horns to
fend off a predator.
But first and
foremost, those horns
are used for
competing for mates.
So that has completely
shifted the way
that we look at dinosaurs.
And one of the things
in North America
with all these different horned
dinosaurs that we find, just
for example, it's phenomenal.
Every species has
a different set
of these bony bells and
whistles on their heads.
And if you look at
the rest of the body,
they're almost identical.
So if you cut off
the top of the skull
and you only look at
the jaws and the limb
bones and the backbone, you
almost can't tell apart.
The only thing that's
different, in many cases,
is the horns and the frill.
And that suggests, once again,
that evolution at that time
was not targeting what these
animals did to make a living,
like we talk about
natural selection.
It was targeting
mating features.
And if you imagine a big
population of dinosaurs
that get split up
for some reason,
and they continue to
evolve over time, well,
if their horns and frill
evolve, even if they come back
together, they may no
longer recognize each other
as members of the same kind.
And they may no
longer interbreed.
And now, they form two kinds.
And that's what we think
we're seeing with all
these horns and frills.
AUDIENCE: We're going to
ask one more question.
This is my favorite question.
This is from Tom from Tukwila.
He asks--
SCOTT D. SAMPSON: Where is Tom?
AUDIENCE: Right down there.
What's the best place
to find dinosaurs?
SCOTT D. SAMPSON: Tom.
What's the best place
to find dinosaurs?
AUDIENCE: If you can
keep this answer short,
because we have to get
onto the book-signing.
SCOTT D. SAMPSON: OK.
So dinosaurs are
found everywhere.
There is no best place, one
best place to find dinosaurs.
It used to be North America.
And then it was Argentina.
And then it was China.
I think you could make
a pretty strong argument
that the place that's changed
our understanding of dinosaurs
the most in the last generation
is China, because there are
so many small dinosaurs
with feathers and things
like that that are
beautifully preserved,
better preserved than
anywhere else in the world.
So you could make
a strong argument
that China is the best.
But every place we work, we
find new and exciting things,
as you saw tonight from Utah.
AUDIENCE: I'm going
to disagree, Tom.
I'm going to disagree.
SCOTT D. SAMPSON: OK.
AUDIENCE: I think the
best place to find
dinosaurs is at museums.
[LAUGHTER]
So let's thank Dr. Scott
for a wonderful lecture.
[APPLAUSE]
SCOTT D. SAMPSON: Thank you.
