The Life of the Mesozoic Sea Dragons

Live & Virtual: The Life of the Mesozoic Sea Dragons

The ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs and other marine reptiles of the Mesozoic were amazing predators. New analytical methods are helping palaeontologists to extract enormous amounts of new information from the fossils, and to use this to work out their modes of life (how they swam, diets; reproduction) as well as major events in their evolution. We can work out swimming speeds, improvements in swimming efficiency, the snappiness of their jaws, and how they were affected by multiple extinction events.

The talk will be a review of the history from Mary Anning onwards, but the key focus will be on how we can use fossils and modern computing methods to establish some key facts about palaeobiology and macroevolution.

Professor Michael James Benton FRS FRSE, School of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol.

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