The following is an edited extract from The Story of Birds: A New History From Their Dinosaur Origins To the Present
I will never forget my first dinosaur wing. I was a college student, on my first international expedition, preparing to venture into the mountains of Tibet in search of Jurassic dinosaurs.
Our team assembled in Beijing, and as we rushed through the galleries and storehouses of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, I stole a fleeting glance, from across the room. A skeleton of the little carnivore Microraptor, its long arms unfurled, adorned with feathers forming a broad sheet. The wings sparkled in the low light; I was mesmerised. And then we were hustled along.
