What if Jurassic Park had been set in China? Imagine swarms of human-rights protestors picketing outside the electric fences; knock-off velociraptors running free in Moscow; and the Dalai Lama sharing a pen with a brontosaurus. As incongruous as it might sound, some of the finest dinosaur fossils in the world were recently discovered in China, coincidentally, right next to a discarded pile of pirated copies of Gigli. We kid, we kid.
The digs, which yielded eight fossils with feathers attached, led the scientific community to produce the now widely accepted theory that birds descended from the extinct killer lizards. Because this is the first time these fossils have left Beijing, our very own Miami Museum of Science and Planetarium scored a coup in securing the collection's debut. The exhibition Dinosaurs of China opens today at 10:00 a.m. and features 52 real dinosaur fossils and 14 mounted skeletons, including the 85-foot-long Mamanchisaurus Jingyanesis, which we think translates as: Please don't eat me.
Sat., June 16