When I first read that an eight-year-old had written a published book about dinosaurs, my first reaction was “how cute.” However when I was finally able to examine a copy of the book, I blushed with shame at my initial condescension.
In the special SVP 2016 episode of Palaeocast, Liz Martin-Silverstone and Caitlin Colleary provide an entertaining and enthusiastic recap of the recently completed 76th Annual Meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology. Also included in this episode is an interview with the always interesting Brian Switek, who many will also likely know by his nom-de-Twitter Laelaps.
When it comes to dinosaurs, there are few who can match the enthusiasm for the subject than that possessed by children with a particular interest in them. To be sure, paleontologists know their field of study, but for sheer exuberance-driven knowledge, your dino-obsesed ten-year-old is a perpetually bubbling font of information like few others.
Tyrannosaurus rex. Back when I was a boy, there wasn’t a child worth his or her collection of little plastic dinosaurs that didn’t know the name of this (then, at least) most fearsome – and singular – of creatures.