Date Born/ Age:Post-glacial

Length:175 cm

Weight:74 kg

Favorite Food: Japanese

Family: Married, with two married daughters

Genus: Paleo Biologist

Species: .

Place of Origin: Beckenham, Kent, England

Habitat: .Ontario, Canada

Favorite Movie: Sliding doors

Favorite TV Show: .Seldom watch anything but movies

Favorite Dinosaur: Norman (sorry Samantha)

Favorite Sport: .Was never into sports

Exercise: .

Hobbies: Writing, brewing, wine-making, cooking. 

Distinguishing Features: .white hair and elfin beard.

Chris McGowan  was the 
Paleontologist of the Month for International Dinosaur Month 1999
on 
Dinosaur Interplanetary Gazette Dino Dish
from October 1-31, 1999

Vera Velociraptor's Very Vast, Verbose, Voracious Vocabulary 

Students? Pay Attention! Be sure to check out that is to say, investigate, (humph), certain other useful pieces of terminology at the 7V-WOW Archives.

 Chris McGowan was born in England, went to all the wrong schools, but had good teachers who taught science properly.  He fell in love with the subject.  As a young lad he amused himself by conducting experiments, and by building things.  His interests included rockets (which more often exploded than flew), model aircraft, steam engines, chemistry, osteology and natural history. 

 After obtaining a B.Sc. in Zoology at one of the least known seats of learning in London, he became a full-time high-school teacher.  He loved teaching, but did not want to stay at school forever.  He therefore enrolled as a part-time graduate student at London University, to study paleontology.  The choice between research projects--Pleistocene pigs or ichthyosaurs--was an easy one.  He received his Ph.D. three years later, in 1969.  He moved to Canada the same year, with his wife and two young daughters, to take a job in the paleontology department at the Royal Ontario Museum.  He has been there ever since.

 In addition to his museum duties he is a Professor of Zoology at the University of Toronto.  Although interested in dinosaurs, his research focus is on ichthyosaurs, a group of fish-like reptiles that lived in the sea while dinosaurs roamed the land.  A firm believer in the idea that we cannot know much about the dead before knowing a lot about the living, he spends much of his time researching modern animals.  Several of his scientific publications, and two of his ten books, are about modern animals. 

 Convinced that the only way to learn it is by doing it, the courses he teaches at the U of T are very much hands-on.  His two books on building dinosaurs from chicken bones were written to share the fun of learning by first-hand experience.  He lives outside of Toronto with his lovely wife, and close to his two gorgeous daughters.
 

Books by Chris McGowan 
Look for these books at your Public Library
Some of these books may be purchased (instantly) online through our relationship with Amazon.Com. All purchases support D.I.G. 

McGowan, C. 1983a  The successful dragons: A natural history of  extinct reptiles.  Samuel Stevens, Toronto and Sarasota, 263  pp. Currently Out of Print.

McGowan, C. 1983b. In the beginning: A scientist shows why the  creationists are wrong.  Macmillan of Canada, Toronto, 208 pp.  [paperback edition, 1984, still in print with Prometheus, NY.]

McGowan, C. 1992a.  Dinosaurs, Spitfires, and Sea Dragons,  Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 384 pp.

McGowan, C. 1992b.  Discover dinosaurs: Become a Dinosaur Detective .  Kids Can Press, Toronto,  96 pp, Currently Unavailable from publisher. Can sometimes be special ordered.

McGowan, C. 1994.  Diatoms to dinosaurs. Julian Mulock (Illustrator),  Island Press,  Washington, 271 pp.  [paperback available from Penguin, UK]

McGowan, C. 1997a. Make your own dinosaur out of chicken bones.   HarperCollins, New York, 144 pp.

McGowan, C. 1997b. The raptor and the lamb: Predators and Prey in the Living World .  Henry Holt, New  York, 272 pp.

McGowan, C. January, 1998 A Practical Guide to Vertebrate Mechanics 320 pages

McGowan, C. 1999 T-rex to Go!  Make your own T. rex out of chicken bones.