A Visit to the Queensland Museum - 2 (Paleontology) "Dinosaurs are the uncontested stars of paleontology.”

                            A Visit to the Queensland Museum - 2

"Dinosaurs are the uncontested stars of paleontology.”

 Brisbane, Australia

The Queensland Museum is the state museum of Queensland, dedicated to natural history, cultural heritage, science and human achievement. Founded in 1862 by the Royal Society of Queensland, it  has a collection of more than 1,000,000 items.

What is Paleontology? Paleontology is the study of ancient life, from dinosaurs to prehistoric plants, mammals, fish, insects, fungi, and even microbes. Fossil evidence reveals how organisms changed over time and what our planet was like long ago.

Photographs taken by Dr Abe V Rotor

"Dinosaurs are the uncontested stars of paleontology.”

-  Sebastien Steyer.

  

'The Good Dinosaur', 'The Lost World', 'Jurassic Park', 'Dinosaur', 'Ice Age: Dawn Of The Dinosaurs', are a number of dinosaur movies that have come from Hollywood for kids.

  

“Children have a great urge to learn about dinosaurs.”– Jack Horner.

 

.“ Dinosaurs may be extinct from the face of the planet, but they are alive and well in our imaginations.” — Steve Miller.

  

“If we measured success by longevity, then dinosaurs must rank as the number one success story in the history of land life.” - Robert T. Bakker.

 

 

"At what rate does speciation (formation of new species) occur? 

Over the course of evolutionary history, species continually form, exist for a time, and go extinct." -  T Audisirk, Audisirk G and B Byers, Life on Earth

  

What dinosaur was on Earth first? Named Nyasasaurus parringtoni, the roughly 243-million-year-old fossils represent either the oldest known dinosaur or the closest known relative to the earliest dinosaurs. Internet

 

“Dinosaurs are the best way to teach kids, and adults, the immensity of geologic time.”- Robert T. Bakker.

 

Sir Richard Owen coined the word dinosaur in 1841. The word 

"dinosaur" meant "terrible lizard."

   

“It is only at the beginning of the age of the dinosaurs that the deep sea, hitherto bare of organisms, was finally invaded by life.”- Isaac Asimov.

 

"A fossil is physical evidence of a prehistoric plant or animal. This may be their preserved remains or other traces, such as marks they made in the ground while they were alive. Fossilised remains - including fossil bones and teeth - are known as body fossils. Fossilised shells are also body fossils." - Natural History Museum

 

“A visit to a museum is a search for beauty, truth, and meaning in our lives. Go to museums as often as you can.” — Maira Kalman. 

  

 Museum is not a place of artifacts; it's a place of ideas. Internet

  

  

Museums help us to learn from the past.  The purpose of modern museums is to collect, preserve, interpret, and display objects of artistic, cultural, or scientific significance for the study and education of the public.

     

This ideal museum experience is transformative and all-encompassing. It is experiential in the fullest sense because of it's multi-dimensional quality. The experience happens between people (audience), places (museum) and things (exhibits). A successful museum experience must cover all these spaces simultaneously.

The Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, also known as the Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction, was a sudden mass extinction of three-quarters of the plant and animal species on Earth, approximately 66 million years ago. The event caused the extinction of all non-avian dinosaurs. Wikipedia

 

Acknowledgement: Queensland Museum, Internet for some texts and quotes 

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The author is the founder and former curator of the Farmers' Museum of the National Food Authority, St Paul University QC Museum, and presently, the Living with Nature Center of San Vicente, Ilocos Sur.