And then a strange thought bubbled up in my mind: How did such a gargantuan animal have sex? I stopped and stared at the behemoth-a replica of Brachiosaurus inherited from the Field Museum in Chicago-mentally filling in the internal organs, muscles and skin of a creature that at 85 feet long is one of the largest dinosaurs ever found. Pillarlike forelimbs and brawny shoulders supported a long swerve of neck bones leading up to the dinosaur's small, boxy skull, which peered over the top of a banner touting the airport's Wi-Fi, as if looking to the tarmac beyond to check the latest departures and arrivals. But the scene did not evaporate as I approached. At first I thought it was a mirage created by my travel-addled brain.
I was shuffling through Chicago's O'Hare international airport when I saw it: a magnificent, towering skeleton of a dinosaur. Adapted from My Beloved Brontosaurus: On the Road with Old Bones, New Science, and Our Favorite Dinosaurs, by Brian Switek, by arrangement with Scientific American/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC.
