Celebration Of Fossilization In Philadelphia
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Folks flocked to the Academy of Natural Sciences this weekend for Paleopalooza -- an exploration and celebration of all things prehistoric.
The fossil festival offered close-up looks at the museum's collection, as well as talks, crafts, and other activities. Among them: a Drawn to Dinosaurs demonstration.
"He is drawing Haddy the Hadrosaur, which was found in Haddonfield New Jersey in the 1800s," says volunteer Kyle Taylor.
Taylor is talking about artist David Zinn, doing a life-size chalk rendering of the duck-billed dinosaur, whose expression is priceless:
"She's got what we call a "wait -what?" face, like she's just realized she's extinct."
Haddy was elephant-sized, but New Jersey State Museum paleontologist Jason Schein says dinosaurs came in all sizes -- it's just that big bones are easier to find than little ones:
"There were some cat and turkey-sized dinosaurs. Even Velociraptor was almost like an oversized, angry turkey -- not that big."
And, says Schein, dinosaurs didn't exactly disappear:
"Birds really are dinosaurs, and they're direct descendants of predatory dinosaurs."
Even Hummingbirds?
"All of them," Schein says. "Direct descendants."
