"This exhibition examines the link between the meat-eating therapod dinosaurs, such as Velociraptor and Tyrannosauraus, and modern birds. Many scientists now believe that modern birds are feathered dinosaurs which survived the 'extinction event' at the end of the Cretaceous Period 65 million years ago.

The Department of Geology at the National Museum of Wales is touring this display to various museums in Wales.

I am a trained archaeologist and am very excited to be able to host this display in mid Wales.

It is not often that we get a chance to see items from the national collection on our own door step. This interesting exhibition explains some of the research that has gone on in various parts of the world.

The first clues that birds lived at the same time as the dinosaurs were revealed when a single fossil feather was discovered in Germany in 1859. A few years later an almost complete skeleton was found with impressions of feathers preserved in fine mud rock.

This oldest known bird was called Archaeopteryx 'ancient wing' and lived about 150 million years ago. It had feathers and a wishbone like modern birds but it also had teeth and a bony tail like a dinosaur.

This exhibition will contain some examples of teeth and claws but not whole skeletons. As Michael pointed out, 'This display is about therapods which are some of the earliest known dinosaurs.

They are a type of dinosaur that include all the famous meat eaters. They walked or ran on their two long back legs and were agile and active hunters. Some were as small as crows while others weighed 8 tonnes.

The display emphasises the similarity between the features of common birds, which we find in our gardens, to those of dinosaurs. They had light hollow bones, collar bones that fused together into wishbones and long arms with wrists that could swivel and flex sideways.

The display touches on information found through studying the track-ways and footprints of dinosaurs.

From the length of a stride to the pressure of each step we can calculate the size and weight of the individual dinosaur.

Many dinosaurs behaved like birds too. They often moved in flocks or packs and they built nests for their eggs. They nested in colonies and returned to the same nesting place.

Since 1996 many spectacular fossils have been found in China. They come from fine grained rocks formed of volcanic ash. There are some fossils of birds, complete with feathers.

The display contains images of these and it implies that dinosaurs, like Velociraptors, did not have a scaly skin like a reptile, but had feathers like a bird.

So before you go out into your garden again, just think about the descendants of the avian dinosaurs flying and jumping around outside.

Some Scientists think that birds are so closely related to Velociraptors and Tyrannosaurus that these common birds are in fact dinosaurs."

Article written by Michael Freeman