Ancient Giants hit Oregon

PORTLAND – Since the mid-1990s, China has rocked the paleontology world with a steady stream of dazzling finds, many dug from dry farmland west of Beijing in a province called Liaoning.

There, about 130 million years ago, a series of volcanic eruptions entombed uncounted thousands of dinosaurs, along with primitive birds and mammals. The sudden burial in fine ash and mud preserved detailed features of bone, skin and feathers never before seen in fossils.

“The Liaoning deposits in the past 12 years or so have been our best window on the early evolution of birds, feathers and flight,” says Kevin Padian, a professor of paleontology and evolutionary biology at the University of California at Berkeley.

“They have essentially shown us how feathers evolved and what the early functions of feathers may have been.”

A sampling of China’s rich and growing treasure of dinosaur finds is on display in a recently opened exhibit at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry here.

The exhibit, China’s Ancient Giants, runs through Sept. 1.

Among the big showstoppers is the fossil skeleton of a Mamenchisaurus, which stomped around China eating leaves about 150 million years ago. It apparently used its freakishly long neck – stretching more than 30 feet from its titanic body to its tiny pinhead – like a vacuum cleaner hose to sweep across the forest floor for food.

There also are several recently unearthed small dinosaurs from Liaoning, including the complete fossil remains of one of the earliest feathered dinosaurs. Sinosauropteryx grew a coat of short bristles that may have been primitive feathers. Scientists figure these served as insulation.

An adjacent display case holds the 125 million-year-old remains of the earliest known bird, a flier called Confuciusornis. The fossil shows this bird’s rakish tail feathers, like those of a magpie, its equivalent in size.

Microraptor, a flying dinosaur about the size of a crow, made headlines last year when researchers concluded that it used parallel sets of flight feathers on its forelimbs and hind legs to fly in a biplane configuration. The fossil shows neat rows of needle-sharp teeth, delicate ribs, and the hooked claws on its forelimbs and feet that it might have used to climb trees.

Burial by volcanic ash or other catastrophe struck so swiftly that some Liaoning fossils have preserved dinosaurs in action poses. In one striking display, three prehistoric turtles appear to be gliding in a calm pond.

The exhibit’s creators included imaginative re-creations of big, fierce predators in action. One fossil display shows a 17-foot-long, two-legged predator tangling with a 20-foot-long, armor-plated Chinese stegosaur called Tuojiangosaurus.

“It’s a rare opportunity to see this stuff,” says Kristi Falkowski, a science educator at the museum.

The traveling exhibit debuted in British Columbia five years ago, and the lineup of specimens differs at each venue. It’s the largest collection of Chinese fossils to tour the United States since 1988, when the American Museum of Natural History arranged a show of 42 specimens on loan from Beijing’s leading paleontology institute.

A Pennsylvania company called Dino Don Inc. organized the new touring exhibit, with most of the fossils on loan from China’s Dalian Natural History Museum.