The last of the dinosaurs disappeared some 65 million years ago. But to BMCC assistant professor David Krauss, they’re as alive and relevant as today’s headlines.
A paleontologist by training, Krauss teaches general biology, anatomy, physiology and geology all of which intersect with his interest in the supersized reptiles that roamed the Earth during prehistoric times.
An understanding of dinosaurs how they lived and why they died out has direct and practical relevance to today’s world, whether you’re searching for new sources of oil, building railway tunnels, or simply trying to understand how ecosystems change over time,” he says. But practical applications are not the only or even the primary draw of paleontology, he adds. Dinosaurs, says Krauss, are cool.
Miles and miles of heart
A major focus of Krauss’s research is on how dinosaurs interacted with their ecosystems and each other and survived as long as they did. Brachiosaurus, for example, was an exceptionally tall herbivore that would tower over any present-day giraffe, “creating some very complicated problems in terms of respiratory and circulatory physiology,” Krauss says. You can’t help imagining that it needed an incredibly large and powerful heart to pump blood that high. Although Krauss’s biology and physiology classes focus on extant species, he will often discuss the quirks of dinosaurian respiratory systems. “It makes for an interesting aside,” he says.
Krauss’s investigations whether into the feeding habits of T-Rex, the mating behavior of triceratops, or the strange life of mamenchisaurus, whose head sat at the end of a 46-foot-long neck are informed by extensive field work. “You start by mapping the terrain, looking for an area with the right kind of sedimentary and erosional environment,” he says. Once you’ve secured a permit to work on it, you hop in your truck, drive out to the site, set up camp, and hike through the desert or badlands looking for fossils. It’s great fun.
Early influences
Krauss, who has also taught at Boston College and Wellesley, earned his Bachelors degree at Tufts and a Masters and Ph.D. in environmental biology at the University of Massachusetts. Perhaps it’s not surprising that his passion for dinosaurs goes back to childhood visits to museums with his parents. “All little kids love dinosaurs,” he says. I certainly did. I like them just as much now. It’s just that I appreciate them on a different level. Even so, he still has an impressive collection of plastic miniatures, which he uses as a teaching aid.
“One of the best things about being a paleontologist is that your toy dinosaurs are tax-deductible,” he says.
