Welsh Journals

Dinosaurs from China: an exhibition at the National Museum of Wales Michael G. Bassett Spectacular skeletons of dinosaurs from the People's Republic of China form the centrepiece of an exhibition at the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff until April 1988. It is the largest exhibition of dinosaurs ever to be staged in Britain, and includes unique specimens that have not been seen before outside China. This article gives a background to dinosaurs and dinosaur studies in China as an introduction and short guide to the exhibition in Cardiff. What Were dinosaurs? When and Where did they live? How did they live? How were they related to other animals? Many different types of vertebrate and invertebrate fossils from other parts of the world are displayed in the exhibition in Cardiff together with the Fig. 1 Chart of geological time, showing some important events in the evolution of life. dinosaurs from China to discuss the answers to these and other questions about the 'Age of Reptiles' the span of geological time known as the Mesozoic Era. The oldest known dinosaurs are from the late Triassic Period, in rocks about 220 milion years old (Fig. 1); they flourished during the Jurassic Period and until the end of the Cretaceous Period, before becoming extinct 65 million years ago. Typical fossils from each of these periods are included among the Chinese specimens. Dinosaur ancestors and relatives To many people dinosaurs were simply any kinds of 'Prehistoric monsters'. In fact they were distinctive members of a great group of reptiles known as archosaurs a group that also included the crocodiles and the pterosaurs (or flying reptiles). Approximately 4380 million years of the history of the Earth had passed before the first dinosaurs evolved, and although they then 'ruled the Earth' for most of the Mesozoic Era, they were to disappear over 60 million years before the first Man evolved. Dinosaurs lived only on the land none swam in the seas and none flew in the air and throughout their 155 million years of history they were probably the dominant form of life on our planet. The long evolutionary history of vertebrate animals began some 520 million years ago in the Palaeozoic Era (Fig. 1) with the appearance of the first fishes. From these the amphibians evolved about 350 million years ago to begin the colonisation of the land by back-boned animals, leading to the origin of the reptiles about 300 million years ago. Late in the Permian Period, about 270 million years ago, the earliest, primitive reptiles gave rise to the first group of archosaurs known as thecodontians, from which the dinosaurs, crocodiles and pterosaurs were eventually to be derived. Among other features, all archosaurs are characterised by the presence