Dinosaurs: Evolution, Extinction, and Paleobiology

Course Overview

Dinosaurs are unique in the history of life. They evolved more than 200 million years ago, inhabited every continent, and are still around today. This course provides an overview of the world of dinosaurs, from the earliest small dinosaurs to titanosaurs and T. rex to modern birds, and investigates some of the most fascinating questions in dinosaur paleontology: How did dinosaurs get so big? What were they like when they were alive? Why did they suddenly go extinct? Drawing on the Museum’s long-standing leadership in the field, including the world's largest collection of vertebrate fossils, renowned paleontologists Mark Norell and Diego Pol, joined by colleagues from around the world, explain how modern discoveries are made. Through videos and essays, this course takes learners into the field, where fossils are discovered and excavated, and then back to the lab where paleontologists use new technologies and methods to infer how these animals lived. Learners will do their own investigations using real specimens to gain first-hand knowledge of how paleontologists continue to make new discoveries about ancient creatures.