Be transported back to a time when dinosaurs roamed the deserts of North Africa, with National Geographic Live’s Spinosaurus, Lost Giant of the Cretaceous, coming to the Royal Theatre on May 2.
This special evening and final event in the NatGeo Live series features German/Moroccan paleontologist Nizar Ibrahim, who will tell tales of his search for some of the biggest dinosaurs to ever walk the Earth, and his discovery of what is believed to be the first truly semiaquatic dinosaur, Spinosaurus aegypticus.
A post-doctoral scholar in vertebrate anatomy and paleontology at the University of Chicago, Ibrahim was the National Geographic Emerging Explorer in 2014 and the following year was named a TED fellow, the first paleontologist in the history of the program.
He was part of an international team of scientists who scoured the deserts of Morocco and beyond, looking for clues to life in the Cretacous period. Along with many huge dinosaur bones, he has discovered fossil footprints and a new species of flying reptile with an 18-foot wingspan believed to have lived 95 million years ago.
His findings can be found in the journal Science and as a cover story for National Geographic magazine.
An upcoming paper describing the ecosystem of what is now Morocco’s Sahara Desert in the mid-Cretacous period is predicted to be a milestone, providing the most detailed account of the diversity, paleoecology and geologic context of fossil vertebrates from North Africa.
Hear this internationally renowned scientist at the Royal on Wednesday, May 2. Tickets are available online at rmts.bc.ca, by phone at 250-386-6121 or at the Royal or McPherson Theatre box offices.
