THE DINOSAUR EXPERT.
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| THE DINOSAUR EXPERT. |
James Bruce is one of the world’s leading palaeontologísts. ln other words, he is a dinosaur expert who studies fossils, the remains of animal bones that are millions of years old. He hasn’t always been interested in dinosaurs. ’I had other hobbies when I was a kid,’ he says.
James’ interest was sparked at 14 when he saw a dinosaur movie at the cinema. ’l loved the special effects and the idea that such amazing animals had been on earth millions of years ago,’ he says. ’Then I got obsessed with theories of what caused the dinosaurs to disappear. That still fascinates me and I wish ! had time to study it now.’
Twenty five years after that cinema trip, James spends a lot of time travelling around the world looking for dinosaur fossils. 'I’m so lucky to be doing that,’ he admits.
His experience as a teenager is one reason why he is unwilling to criticise dinosaur movies. He understands that they are meant to entertain, and the fact that the dinosaurs in them move much faster than was actually the case 100 million years ago doesn’t concern him. ’The ones you see in films are also a lot more intelligent than they could possibly have been,’ he says. ’But if the films get people interested in dinosaurs by telling a good story, that’s a good thing.’
James has spent some of the last three years advising makers of TV documentaries on the subject of dinosaurs.’That’s great fun,’ he says. He checks that the animals reconstructed for the documentaries are as close as possible to what scientists know about dinosaurs. ’In the movies, dinosaurs are shown as darker and less colourful than they were in reality,’ he says. ’That’s to make them look scary. I make sure the dinosaur figures in the documentaries are colourful!
However, James admits there’s much that is still unknown about dinosaurs. 'We have very little idea about how they Interacted with each other you can’t work it out just from studying bones,’ he says. Also, there are various theories about what sounds dinosaurs might have made, but the evidence is limited.’l'm very keen to investigate both of those issues/James says.
James' main job is at a university where he is professor of palaeontology. ’Some of my colleagues just want to do research and don’t much like teaching but it gives me great satisfaction,’James says. What he is less keen on is the time and energy he has to devote to raising funds to pay for the new research projects that he loves coming up with.
One project that he worked on was part of a wider international programme, which established that modern-day birds are directly related to dinosaurs. lt was this discovery that led James and other palaeontologists to conclude that many species of dìnosaur were covered with feathers. ’All the dinosaurs we see when we go to the cinema are featherless and that’s not what most were like’,’ he says.
Palaeontology is a fast-moving field with new discoveries being made all the time. Fossils are regularly found, and previously unknown species are identified. Experts are continuing to investigate issues of great importance.’We still don't know much about how dinosaurs originally developed,’ says James.’It’s something l'd be very keen to do some work on if the opportunity arose.’
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