DinoFest Speaker: Brooks Britt, Ph.D.
About Dr. Brooks Britt
Brooks Britt discovered his first dinosaur at the age of 15 and has been excavating them ever since. He teaches geology and paleontology at Brigham Young University and studies vertebrate fossils at its Museum of Paleontology using tools ranging from needles under a microscope, to an 8-axis laser scanner, to a 6 million electron volt CT scanner. Current student projects include sauropod stomach contents, a clutch of dinosaur eggs, several new dinosaurs, and more.
About the Lecture
Caelestiventus — Utah’s Fiercest Triassic Predator
A vast desert with dunes hundreds of feet high covered much of Utah in the Late Triassic. Oases between these dunes hosted a menagerie of animals. The most spectacular oasis denizen was Caelestiventus, a pterosaur with a 5-foot-wingspan. Its skull, armed with 108 teeth and a prong-tipped mandible, was used to flip prey into the air and snatch it between spiked teeth. Learn how paleontologists discovered Calestiventus and what they know about its cohorts.