Plant-eating dinosaurs of the Southeast will be the topic of the next lecture at the McClung Museum of Natural History on Sunday, October 27.
Dinosaur expert Marc Spencer will speak at 2:00 p.m. in the museum’s auditorium. The event is free and open to the public.
The presentation is part of the museum’s fiftieth anniversary celebration.
Spencer, professor in the Department of Anatomy and Pathology at Marshall University and an expert on early ornithischian dinosaurs, will present the talk “Cows of the Mesozoic: The Origin and Geographic Distribution of Plant-Eating Dinosaurs.”
Ornithischians, one of the two major groups of dinosaurs, were the dominant plant eaters in many ecosystems throughout the Mesozoic Era. They spanned a broad range of sizes and shapes, from tiny two-legged runners no bigger than a beagle to the massive spike-tailed stegosaurs, horned and frilled ceratopsians, and duck-billed ornithopods. Some even had feathers.
Spencer will discuss the origins of this group of dinosaurs and how they came to be spread across the planet over the course of 165 million years. He also will discuss what the environment was like in the southeastern United States during the Age of Dinosaurs and the dinosaurs that inhabited the area.
McClung Museum’s fiftieth anniversary lecture series brings worldwide experts to speak on topics related to the museum’s collections and exhibitions.
The McClung Museum, 1327 Circle Park Drive, is open Monday through Saturday 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and Sundays from 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m., and admission is free. Free two-hour museum parking passes are available from the parking information building at the entrance to Circle Park Drive. Parking passes are not needed on the weekends.
For more information about the McClung Museum and its collections and exhibits, visit the website.
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CONTACTS:
Catherine Shteynberg (865-974-6921, cshteynb@utk.edu)
Christina Selk (865-974-2143, cselk@utk.edu)