Dr. Ryosuke Motani, associate professor of geology at UC Davis, and one of the world's experts on ichthyosaurs gave a lecture entitled, "The Rise and Demise of Sea Dragons, Ichthyosaurs." We learned a variety of amazing things including the fact that ichthyosaurs have one of the largest eyes for their body size ever recorded in the history of life and that they have a donut shaped bone in their eye! They ranged in size from 70 cm to 15 meters and some fossil ichthyosaurs have been found in California. We also learned that land dinosaur fossils are not found in California because the land that is now California was under water during the age of the dinosaurs. We began the evening with dinner at the food court in the Westfield shopping mall followed by a visit to the new dinosaur exhibit at the California Academy of Sciences. Five AP Biology students attended. In the photo above from left to right are pictured: Barbara Hopkins, A.J. Shepherd, Dr. Montani, Chris Shelton, Mr. Hammack, Liz Mellema, and Alexa Shamshoian.
For more information on ichthyosaurs from Dr. Motani.