At the January meeting Dr Gareth Dyke, a senior lecturer at Southampton University, laid out his case that birds evolved from Dinosaurs, fully engaging the considerable audience.

He started off giving the history of discovery and how the idea fell out of favour until the 1960s/70s. 1987 was a huge leap forward, before which almost nothing was know about evolution of flight in birds.

To illustrate the connection, Gareth gave many examples of similarities of the body structures of birds and dinosaurs.

Interestingly, relatively little is known about the relationships between the orders of bird, when compared with details known about mammals.

His presentation closed with the big, unanswered questions such where living birds came from and how their evolutionary history was affected by the end Cretaceous mass extinction event.

Have a listen
Below, you too can listen to his presentation and the busy Question and Answers session that, after a short break, followed for another half hour.

Presentation

Q&A with the audience