Science: Debunking Dinosaur Myths

• Share

An expert on the "terrible lizard" separates fact from fiction

Nothing irks Edwin Colbert more than the widespread notion that dinosaurs were lumbering dimwits too big and clumsy to cope with their environment. "A canard," snaps Colbert. "Dinosaurs were not failures. They were enormously successful. They dominated the planet for 135 million years." By contrast, man is only a few million years old. Declares Colbert: "I doubt if we'll be around as long as the dinosaurs."

At 78, Colbert may be the world's premier authority on the ancient reptiles. He has devoted more than half a century to tracking down, examining and reconstructing their fossilized remains. His quest has taken him to sites as distant as the frozen wastes of Antarctica. Curator of fossil reptiles and amphibians at New York City's American Museum of Natural History for 35 years, he directed the construction of its famed dinosaur galleries. Though Colbert retired in 1970, he continues to write and lecture, showing a rare gift for bringing to life a long-dead world. Nowhere is this talent better displayed than in his latest book, Dinosaurs: An Illustrated History (Hammond; $30), which does much to separate paleontological fact from popular fiction.

Contrary to the public image of dinosaurs as the Edsels of evolution, says Colbert, they were extraordinarily well-adapted creatures. They inhabited every corner of the world and ranged in bulk from the chicken-size Compsognathus to the 100-ton Brachiosaurus, the largest creature ever to trod the earth. Though they plodded through swamps and shallow coastal waters, they were essentially land bound. Some ambled on all fours; others scampered after prey on their lower limbs. Some may have lived a century or more.

When these terrestrial reptiles first appeared 200 million years ago near the end of what geologists call the Triassic Period, tropical or subtropical forests covered much of the landscape. The continents were gathered in a single primordial landmass called Pangaea. Initially, the dinosaurs were relatively small and vulnerable, about the size of ponies. Many of them undoubtedly fell victim to voracious, crocodile-like reptiles called phytosaurs. But by using almost every evolutionary stratagem, they proliferated in number and diversity. Some developed thick protective plating, comparable to that of modern-day armadillos. Ankylosaurus had armor on its skull, knobby stubs over its back and legs, and possessed a tail that ended in a huge bony club. Perhaps to shed excess body heat, Stegosaurus sprouted triangular-shaped fins on its back. Thanks to such biological cunning, within only a few million years, the dinosaurs became the overlords of their antediluvian domain.