I am Will Dunham and I am in Washington, D.C., where I cover a wide range of [science topics](https://www.reuters.com/authors/will-dunham/) for Reuters. We have recently hit the [200th anniversary of the first formal scientific recognition of a dinosaur](https://www.reuters.com/science/first-dinosaur-was-named-200-years-ago-we-know-so-much-more-now-2024-02-13/) — our toothy friend Megalosaurus — and there are many other developments in the field of dinosaur paleontology as well.
I have been a journalist in Washington since 1984 and at Reuters since 1994. I have covered science news for Reuters off and on since 2001 and I’m also an editor on the Reuters Global News Desk. On the science front, I have covered everything from voracious black holes to tiny neutrinos, the sprawling human genome to the oldest-known DNA, the evolution of our species to the field of space medicine, and of course all things relating to dinosaurs and other intriguing prehistoric creatures.
**Ask me anything and everything dinosaur-related and I will answer from 3-4 p.m. Eastern.**
Proof: [https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Ffnrv1k363ipc1.jpeg](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Ffnrv1k363ipc1.jpeg)
In: Biology
How are we able to tell that certain dinosaurs had feathers? Is there a modern day bird that you feel is particularly dinosaur-y?
What’s your favorite dinosaur, and why?
What difficulties do you have conveying the information you have in understandable ways? Do you ever feel you have to straddle the line between keeping people interested and over simplifying?
Are there interesting things you feel like you’ve had to leave out of stories for the sake of brevity or time you’d like to come back to? I understand if you can’t go into a ton of detail on each (but I won’t object…), but I’m curious about what they are, and why?
ELI5 why this isn’t an AMA?
As far as paleontology goes, are there any areas of the world that are currently like “hot spots” for digs or that sort of thing, and if so are we seeing anything that has lead to continual findings of dinosaurs remains (ex like human excavation, natural weather phenomenon, etc…)?
I guess what I was always interested in was how digs get started and what made those areas seem like good places to dig. Anything you can expound upon is appreciated!
Is there any evidence of carnivorous dinosaurs preying on each other? Or did they largely steer clear of each other? Or only if there was a large size difference?
What are the biggest misconceptions people have about dinosaurs and paleontology, and how do you approach explaining to/correcting them?
Relatedly, what are the biggest challenges in communicating information between expert scientists and laypeople, and how do you approach that?
What is your top wish for something paleontologists could conceivably discover – something we have reason to believe existed but have not yet found hard evidence of?
Is there a good statistical understanding of the chances that any creature in a given environment leaves fossil evidence of its existence? How certain are we that we have a representative sampling of life that existed in any era or ecosystem?
If you could clone and hatch a live dinosaur like in Jurassic Park, could it actually survive in our current atmosphere and climate?
The Brontosaurus was one of my favorites when I was a kid and I was recently told that they didn’t actually exist and were just another dinosaur whose fossils were reassembled improperly. What’s the story on that?
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