David Hone Talks Dinosaurs

I had the delight of meeting palaeontologist David Hone today when he visited St. Columba's College and gave two excellent presentations to our pupils. David worked in UCD during last year and we were delighted that he gave up his time today to visit the school and speak to our pupils - and with some passion. David gave an excellent presentation to our Form V and VI biologists and geologists on the evolution of birds from dinosaurs - with the pupils really finding the content interesting and David's presentation style engaging. Later in the day he spoke to members of Form II, giving another excellent presentation - this time on "Dinosaurs: How we know what we know". In this presentation he showed how scientists use different techniques to reconstruct dinosaurs from the fossil evidence and gain an insight into their shape, colour, physiology and even the sounds they might have made.

David has a number of wonderful websites. His blog, Archosaur Musings, is a frequently updated website detailing his research and his travels. He also runs 'Ask a Biologist' - where, as the name might suggest, one can leave questions for David (and a few others) to answer on biology.

In his time in UCD, David published a number of interesting papers including the discovery of close relative of T rex and a feathered digging theropod. David informs me that he has a number of extremely interesting papers being published in the coming months so watch this space.

Thanks again to David and do take the time to visit some of his excellent websites.