Fermilab in Batavia to welcome dinosaur hunter to reveal latest finds

BATAVIA – Just back from a Saharan expedition, famed paleontologist Paul Sereno will recount his former and most recent discoveries —and the intellectual and personal odyssey those discoveries spawned – at 8 p.m. Jan. 10 at Fermilab in Batavia.

Titled "Hunting for Dinosaurs in the Sahara: Discovering Much More," his program is presented by the Fermilab Arts & Lecture Series.

His finds paint a picture of the lost worlds of Africa and led to his discovery of ancient human inhabitants of a once green Sahara, a news release stated. The impact of this work has sparked plans for museums that aim to lift the spirits and future of an African nation.

Sereno, paleontologist and professor at the University of Chicago and National Geographic Explorer, has discovered scores of new crocodiles, dinosaurs and ancient humans, while leading dozens of expeditions into the Sahara and Gobi deserts and to other sites in Asia, India and the Americas. Sereno’s field work began in the foothills of the Andes in Argentina, where he discovered the first dinosaurs to roam the Earth some 230 million years ago.

Other expeditions have explored Africa’s Sahara, Asia's Gobi Desert, India’s Thar Desert, and remote valleys in Tibet. He also works every year excavating his own “Jurassic Park,” a dinosaur graveyard in Wyoming’s Bighorn Mountains. With a menagerie of spectacular dinosaurs to his credit, he additionally is known for discovering a series of extinct crocodilians, including the 40-foot-long dinosaur-eater dubbed SuperCroc.

Sereno’s latest discovery, a human burial site in the Sahara predating the Egyptian pyramids, provides a snapshot of life in a once “green” Sahara.

Tickets cost $8 and are offered at 630-840-ARTS (2787) or events.fnal.gov. They are nonrefundable. On the evening of the lecture, the box office opens at 7 p.m. and will-call tickets can be picked up, or available tickets purchased. Ramsey Auditorium is in Wilson Hall, the high-rise building. The entrances off Kirk Road at Pine Street in Batavia and off Batavia Road at Route 59 in Warrenville are open.