Family-friendly Talks & Events - Buy your Tickets now!
Uncovering Oxfordshire’s ‘Dinosaur Highway’
The carnivorous theropod Megalosaurus was the first scientifically named dinosaur, described using fossil material found in mineshafts in Oxfordshire. Two hundred years later, ongoing excavations are revealing an extensive dinosaur trackway site nearby. These traces of a Middle Jurassic world give us direct evidence of dinosaur behaviour and include both a 9-metre-long ferocious theropod as well as several sauropods up to twice that size. The new trackways link up with another site, excavated nearby in Ardley in 1997, making the area the largest dinosaur trackway site in Europe.
Giant pterosaurs - flying dragons from the age of dinosaurs
Giant pterosaurs the size of small aeroplanes dominated the skies at the end of the age of dinosaurs. With skulls up to two metres long, wingspans of 10 m or more and weighing a quarter of a ton, these were the largest flying creatures of all time, pushing at the very limits of biomechanics and evolution. How did these animals manage to grow so large, and why? What did they eat, how did they fly, and how did they manage to take off and land without killing themselves? All these questions, and more, will be answered in this talk on the dragons that soared over the heads of dinosaurs.
Living dinosaurs: how we know what we think we know
How can we know how dinosaurs behaved without a time machine? Until recently, much discussion of dinosaur habits was entirely speculative. But in the last 30 years, remarkable new fossils and remarkable new technologies have revealed unexpected information about dinosaur lifestyles. For example, we can now work out the colour of dinosaurs, their bite forces, top speeds, and even how they cared for their young. Remarkable new fossil finds, such as dinosaur eggs with skeletons of the embryos inside from Patagonia and dinosaurs with feathers from China, provide remarkable new information.
The talk will be followed by a Q&A and a book signing.
The Whispers of Rock: Stories from the Earth
If you listen, can you hear the rocks speak? The question seems absurd. After all, rocks are lifeless, inert, and silent. In The Whispers of Rock: Stories from the Earth, earth scientist Anjana Khatwa will ask us to think again and listen to their stories. Delicately intertwining Indigenous stories of Earth’s creation with scientific thought, she will take you on an exhilarating journey through deep time from the green pounamu in Aotearoa NZ to the fiery volcanoes of Hawai’i. In this unforgettable talk, Anjana will show you how rocks have always spoken to us, and we humans to them.
The talk will be followed by a Q&A and a book signing.
Mary Anning's World
Mary Anning carved out a unique place for herself in the new science of palaeontology in the early 19th century. She was exactly the right person, in precisely the right place, at just the right time. Her discoveries attracted international attention and crowds of geologists came to Lyme Regis to visit her. But what was Mary’s world like as the first professional palaeontologist?
The Spinosaurs: ecology and controversy
Spinosaurus has gone from a virtual unknown to one of the most famous predatory dinosaurs and it has brought it and its relatives, the spinosaurs, into the public spotlight. Despite appearances in premier venues such as Walking with Dinosaurs and Jurassic World Rebirth, the biology of these animals is highly controversial. Their fossils record remains surprisingly poor with most species known from only a handful of bones and from a limited number of sites around the world. Join Dr David Hone, to look at the evolution of our understanding of these incredible animals and their unusual anatomy and habits.
Unearthing Giants on Lourinhã’s Jurassic Coast
152 million years ago, during the Late Jurassic, the region of Lourinhã looked very different from today. Instead of Atlantic cliffs, it was a lush landscape of rivers and floodplains near the coast. Dinosaurs roamed these environments, while crocodilomorphs and other reptiles, amphibians, and small mammals thrived alongside them.
Today, the cliffs of western Portugal preserve this extraordinary ecosystem in remarkable detail, revealing one of Europe’s richest Late Jurassic vertebrate assemblages. This talk explores how discoveries by the Palaeontology team at Museu da Lourinhã, together with the local community, help reconstruct ancient habitats, bringing this lost world back to life.
A DINOSAUR ART LIFE How Painting and Sculpting Prehistoric Animals Became My Job
Bob began drawing prehistoric animals as soon as he could to hold a pencil, and today he has twenty-six years of freelance art experience. In this talk Bob will explain his development from an obsessive young hobbyist into a full-time professional illustrator and sculptor. He will show how his artistic workflows have changed from traditional mediums to digital methods, and finally he will talk through the inside-out palaeo-reconstruction process – fossils to skeleton, to soft tissues, to integument, and behaviour. The talk will end with a look at Bob’s newest artworks and perhaps some Lyme Regis Fossil Festival exclusives!
The talk will be followed by a Q&A.
The Secret Lives of Dinosaurs & The Adventures of a Palaeontologist
Unearth the real behaviours of prehistoric animals as we join acclaimed palaeontologist, author, and TV presenter Dr Dean Lomax and renowned palaeoartist, Bob Nicholls, on a remarkable journey through the grand cycle of life in deep time. Focusing on the direct evidence of astonishing behaviours in some of the world’s most extraordinary and unusual fossils, Lomax provides a glimpse into the real-world stories of prehistoric life, from fighting dinosaurs to hungry ichthyosaurs and a two-headed fossil reptile. Along the way, Dr Lomax shares his adventures as a palaeontologist, whilst Bob Nicholls explains his role in reconstructing prehistoric animals, working closely with Dr Lomax to ensure scientific accuracy.
The talk will be followed by a Q&A and a book signing.
Terrible Lizards Podcast
Come along to watch and listen to a live podcast
recording! Terrible lizards is a podcast about dinosaurs with
Dr David Hone from Queen Mary University,
London and Iszi Lawrence. The podcast is aimed
at grown ups but it is clean, so kids can enjoy
it too!
‘Walking in Mary Anning’s footsteps’ Walk
200 years on, Mary Anning would still recognise the streets and many of the buildings of Lyme Regis. Join Mary’s biographer Tom Sharpe on a walk through the town to see and hear about some of the places that Mary knew well.
FOSSIL WALKS with Lyme Regis Museum
Organisers of the Fossil Festival, Lyme Regis Museum, will be running expert-led Guided Fossil Walks on both days of the Festival. Go fossil hunting on Lyme’s famous East beach and Black Ven, learn all about the geology of the Jurassic Coast and discover your own fossils to take home! Walks last between 2.5-3hrs.