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Join Professor Paul Barrett (Trinity 1990) as he discusses the latest evidence for the origins of the dinosaurs, in what is now South America. He will discuss how dinosaurs became some of the most successful land-animals of all time, but suggest that the variety and familiarity of these Jurassic and Cretaceous giants has led to a poorly understood origin of the group. He will explain how dinosaurs began their evolutionary journey in what is now Argentina and Brazil, as small, rare animals that lived in the shadow of many other early reptiles but somehow survived a mass extinction before going on to dominate the Earth.

Professor Paul Barrett is the Natural History Museum’s senior dinosaur specialist, with previous academic appointments at the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford, and is a world-leading expert on the evolution and biology of dinosaurs and other extinct reptiles. He is an enthusiastic science communicator and a frequent contributor to dinosaur-related news items in the media, most recently on Channel 5’s World of Wonder series.

Professor Barrett is the trip scholar on a tour to Argentina in October 2022 organised by Last Frontiers as part of the Alumni Travel programme. The group will visit Patagonia and San Juan (north-west Argentina) where the oldest dinosaur fossils yet discovered were found.

Schedule

4.00pm - Welcome from Claire Baxter, Cambridge Alumni Engagement team and Ed Paine, Last Frontiers

4.10pm - Talk from Professor Paul Barrett (Trinity 1990)

4.40pm - Q&A with Professor Barrett, facilitated by Ed Paine

5.00pm - Finish

This talk is part of the Oxford and Cambridge Universities Alumni Travel programme, and is organised by Last Frontiers, their tour operator partner for Latin America.

This event will be recorded.