AMNH, Wired Science to Host Lunchtime Chat and Live Webcast on New Dinosaur Extinction Research, 5/10

The American Museum of Natural History is teaming up with Wired Science to host a lunchtime discussion about new research that suggests certain groups of dinosaurs were declining millions of years before the mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous. The event will also be streamed live online at amnh.org/live.

The study, led by Museum paleontologists and published this week in the journal Nature Communications, shows that in general, large, bulk-feeding herbivores such as Triceratops and the duck-billed dinosaurs saw a long-term decline before the catastrophe. But carnivores and other plant-eaters, such as giant sauropods, did not. This new research adds to an increasingly complex picture of the end of the age of dinosaurs.

Who: Steve Brusatte, Columbia University graduate student affiliated with the American Museum of Natural History’s Division of Paleontology, lead author of the new study

Mark Norell, chair of the Division of Paleontology, American Museum of Natural History

Brandon Keim, Associate Editor, Wired Science

When: 1 pm (ET), Thursday, May 10

Where: Linder Theater – Free; enter via the 77^th Street entrance between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue; attendees can bring a brown bag lunch or buy one at Café on One  

Watch the webcast live at http://www.amnh.org/live/ and tag your questions with #AMNHlive on Twitter or email them to comments@amnh.org.

For more information about this research, go to http://www.amnh.org/science/papers/extinction_2012.php