Join a dynamic group of individuals who enjoy sharing and discussing science-focused topics. Each month the group selects a new topic to focus on via their online email forum. Speakers and/or readings often support the lively discussions.
This month, our discussion "Dinosaurs to Birds" will be led by Roger Newman, Ashby Village member, volunteer, and former instructor in Anthropology at Berkeley Community College. He is currently a Docent at the California Academy of Sciences. Among his many interests are birds in general and the evolution of species. This month's topic is a perfect blend of the two.
Most paleontologists are now convinced that modern birds are "living dinosaurs" meaning that they are descendants of the only branch of the dinosaur family that did not go extinct when the asteroid hit Earth 65 million years ago. In this talk, we will look into what is the evidence for this. What traits do birds and dinosaurs have in common? Along the way, we will consider some processes of evolution that contributed to what we see in modern bird species, including adaptation to evolving habitats, sexual selection, and most intriguingly "paedomorphosis" or "neoteny" which point to descendants which retain traits previously seen only in juvenile individuals.
Two recent fossil discoveries have a bearing on our subject. Asteriornis is a fossil from Belgium which resembles a modern chicken or duck and may be the closest thing we have to an ancestor of living birds. Oculudentavis was named from a tiny skull found in a piece of amber. It is smaller than the smallest living bird species, the bee hummingbird in Cuba. Unlike all modern birds, this species had jaws full of teeth. We will discuss these and other early representatives of this fascinating family.
Please RSVP to Audre Newman (audrenew@gmail.com) by May 11 if you are interested. She will then send you an invitation which will enable you to join the meeting.