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Suburban dinosaur hunters share their finds with youngsters

Posted October 13, 2009 11:00 pm

By Deborah Pankey

Lisa Zago-Martin, left, and Don Pfister bring dinosaur fossils to schools groups around the suburbs, letting children connect with the prehistoric age. Courtesy of Dinosauria

Lisa Zago-Martin remembers childhood trips to the Field Museum of Natural History. She'd linger in the great hall, gazing up in awe at the long-necked brachiosaurus that then greeted visitors.

For Zago-Martin and generations of youngsters, looking at fossils assembled in stagnant dioramas was the closest they could get to the prehistoric creatures. Not so any more.

Today Zago-Martin, along with fellow self-taught dino hunter Don Pfister, brings real dinosaur bones to schoolchildren and curious adults throughout the suburbs.

Zago-Martin and Pfister, both of Park Ridge, co-founded Dinosauria, an educational program about the age of dinosaurs. They spend weeks digging up bones of late-Jurassic period dinosaurs at a private ranch in Shell, in north central Wyoming. The dig team has unearthed seven full skeletons of dinosaurs including a camarasaurus and an apatosaurus, both long-neck sauropods, and a "beautiful" stegosaurus, Pfister says. They transport the bones to their Park Ridge laboratory where they clean them up, study them and get them ready for display in their Dinosauria presentations. Other finds are sold to museums across the world.

"Being at the dig sites and finding what we do, I feel responsible to do something to share it," Zago-Martin says. "It's not just 'let's talk about dinosaurs,' it's 'let's touch them.'"

Children and adults alike can run their hands along the three-foot long leg bone of a sauropod (a family of tree-eating long-necks) and hold the tooth of a big meat-eating allasaurus. The pair brings not just one or two fossils, but dozens of specimens - some 150 million years old - to be touched and studied.

Besides presentations at local schools, libraries and park districts, the pair gives bimonthly talks at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. They've worked side-by-side with internationally known paleontologist Paul Serano, a Naperville native.

"Dinosauria has really taken off because of the dinosaurs themselves," Pfister says. "We talk about how we find dinosaurs, let the kids touch the bones. It's really a vehicle to get kids interested in science."

In fact it was at one of Pfister's talks a few years back that he met Zago-Martin, a mother of two.

"As a little girl I'd be in my sandbox digging up (toy) dinosaurs and dreaming about digging up real dinosaur bones," she said. "I never completely got over that."

Dinosaur hunter Don Pfister examines pieces of an apatosaurus skull at the Dinosauria dig site in Shell, Wy. Courtesy of Dinosauria

Lisa Zago-Martin helped unearth a camarasaurus at the Dinosauria dig site in Shell, Wy. Courtesy of Dinosauria

Dinosauria presentations •3 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 11, Skokie Library, 5215 Oakton St., Skokie •7 p.m. Friday, Nov. 20, Field Museum, 1400 S. Lake Shore Drive, Chicago •2 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 22, Waukegan Library, 128 N. County St., Skokie •7 p.m. Friday, Nov. 27, Field Museum, 1400 S. Lake Shore Drive, Chicago •10 a.m. Saturday, Dec. 19, Maine Park Leisure Center, 2702 Sibley, Ave.Park Ridge To schedule a presentation, contact Don Pfister at (847) 987-7203 or Lisa Zago-Martin at (312) 388-9711 or visit <a href="http://dinosauria.biz" target="new">dinosauria.biz</a>

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