Visiting American paleontologist Dr Thomas Holtz specialises in dinosaurs- and Tyrannosaurus rex in particular - and is convinced they do, indeed, make fine ambassadors for science.
Dr Holtz, who is a senior lecturer in vertebrate paleontology at the University of Maryland, in the United States, gave a talk on ''Tyrannosaurus: King of the Dinosaurs'' at the Otago Museum yesterday, as part of a series of museum talks.
''Dinosaurs are a way to bring many parts of science to the public.
''They are a great way to get people to really think about science,'' he said.
He is the author of Dinosaurs: The Most Complete. Up-to-Date Encyclopedia for Dinosaur Lovers of all Ages and was a scientific adviser for the Walking with Dinosaurs BBC television series.
Dr Holtz said people both young and old were clearly attracted by dinosaurs, which were spectacular animals.
And the biggest and most spectacular of them all, such as T. rex, attracted the greatest attention, and there was something dragon-like about them - but they also happened to be real.
He joked there might be a ''bland'' 2m-high plant-eating dinosaur that about two people in the world were interested in, but the biggest gained the greatest attention.
Once people became interested in dinosaurs, that led them into many aspects of science, and encouraged them to learn a little more about the scientific method itself.
Dinosaur researchers had to deal with many scientific fields, including biodynamics, the latter to better understand how dinosaurs moved.
Many new things had been discovered about T. rex in recent years, including how the animals grew, experiencing a marked growth spurt about the age of 11 or so and reaching maximum height about the age of 18 or 19.
It had once been assumed T. rex was the descendant of a vastly lengthy series of earlier tall carnivorous dinosaurs.
But some of its early ancestors were, in fact, much smaller and even more clearly bird-like, including some about the size of chickens, he said.
