Come Meet the Ancestors

I can’t recommend highly enough the fabulous exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History, “Dinosaurs Among Us”. It’s basically the evolution of birds from their dinosaur ancestors, but it serves as a comprehensive lesson on evolution itself and shows us the tools – technological and intellectual -- that scientists use to understand the why’s and how’s of this amazing transformation.

In the show, you’ll see exhibits on feathers and other physiological features like eggs, claws, beaks, and bones. All very interesting even to the non-birder; my daughter Phoebe loved it. You’ll also come away with a real sense of awe about the hundreds of millions of years and geological shifts that slowly brought these changes to bear on living creatures.

The whole thing is gorgeously presented as only the AMNH can do, with amazing specimens, cool videos, and instructive, well-written labels. Be aware that this is a dense informational show – I’d compare it to the Darwin exhibit of a few years back – and deserves a decent amount of your time and attention to get the most out of it.

http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/dinosaurs-among-us