Feathered ‘Dinosaurs Among Us’ Opens at Natural History Museum
Submitted by Rose Gordon Sala on

Bird or dinosaur? Your kid may ask that question a lot after visiting Dinosaurs Among Us, the new exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History, opening Monday, March 21, on Manhattan's Upper West Side.
The whole premise behind the new exhibit is that dinosaurs never really left. Instead, we can see their “evolutionary legacy” on display in the behaviors and anatomy of thousands of modern-day birds. Think of your annual turkey wishbone, birds' scaly feet with elongated toes, the aggressive, beast-like piercing call of certain species like the peacock and, of course, their egg-filled nests.
The exhibit is made up of dozens of fossils, full-scale dinosaur and bird casts, as well as display cases of eggs and nests, feathers (everywhere) and other elements to help visitors compare today's bird species with their extinct relatives, like a side-by-side display of the three-toed foot of an emu and the similar, but larger, three-toed foot of a Struthiominus altus that lived 78 million years ago in North America.







