Post your questions here for Kristi Curry Rogers. We'll pick the best ones and post her answers.
octor Kristi Curry Rogers, Curator of Paleontology at the Science Museum, studies the titanosaurs of Madagascar—giant, long-necked dinosaurs that lived 65-75 million years ago. With a team of colleagues from the University of New York at Stony Brook, she is uncovering the rich prehistoric record of this island off the African coast.
Curry Rogers has found growth patterns in titanosaur bones indicating these dinosaurs grew quickly as youngsters, reaching adolescence by age 10 or 15. In this sense, they were more like humans than like slow-growing reptiles. Titanosaurs and other sauropods could reproduce at a relatively young age and get big quickly to avoid predation. Survival strategies like these helped sauropods stick around for 200 million years.
Kristi Rogers and her husband Ray Rogers is featured this week on Macalester College's podcast. You can listen to them, "talk about the lure of dinosaurs, why they keep going back to the same place and why this 'stuff' never gets boring."
Earlier in 2005 Curry Rogers answered lots of great questions from the museum's visitors. It was so popular we decided to bring her back as part of our mini exhibit on science in Madagascar. Read the archive of her previously answered questions.