NEW WAYS OF SEEING: DINOSAURS
Close your eyes and imagine a dinosaur. I don't have any clairvoyant powers, but I've a pretty good idea of what most of you have conjured.
It's a Tyrannosaurus rex – right? It's the most famous dinosaur, and the easiest for most of us to picture. You're probably also seeing it as a big greybrown monster akin to the ‘rex’ represented in Steven Spielberg's 1993 film Jurassic Park. Am I right?
There it is: seven tonnes of carnivore astride a grassy field against the backdrop of a lush, tropical forest under bright blue skies. There are likely herds of lumbering long-necked sauropods in the background of your mind's dino scene and a brown Triceratops or two as well. In fact, your imaginary T. rex is probably bounding after the horned Triceratops with an epic battle to the death ensuing as the picture plays out in your head.
This is the popular view of dinosaurs, informed by all sorts of media over the years. It's also, probably, mostly wrong.
Science is showing that much of what we've believed in the past about dinosaurs – from where they lived to what they looked like and how they behaved – isn't accurate. And, in fact, a lot of what is still put out for popular consumption lags far behind our scientific knowledge.
Top billing: dinos on screen
So let's start by playing fair: media representations of dinosaurs have come a long way.
was discovered in 1902 in Hell Creek, Montana, US, by the American Museum of Natural History's famous fossil hunter Barnum Brown. Brown – aka ‘Mr Bones’ – is said to have been named after beyond-legend circus showman
