30 Facts About Dougal Dixon

Dougal Dixon was born on 1 March 1947 and is a Scottish geologist, palaeontologist, educator and author.

Dougal Dixon was born in Dumfries on 1 March 1947 to parents Thomas Bell Dougal Dixon and Margaret Ann Hurst.

Dougal Dixon had an older brother, John Edward, who died in 1942 at the age of six.

Dougal Dixon spent most of his younger years in the Scottish borderlands.

Dougal Dixon has had a special interest in evolution and fossils since his youth.

Dougal Dixon was first introduced to dinosaurs at the age of five, when he saw one in a comic book.

Dougal Dixon has since credited this moment as igniting his interest for prehistoric creatures and natural history.

In 1970, Dougal Dixon graduated from the University of St Andrews with a Bachelor of Science and in 1972, he graduated with a Master of Science, having studied geology and palaeontology.

From 1976 to 1978 Dougal Dixon worked as a part-time tutor, teaching geology and palaeontology, at the Open University.

Dougal Dixon did teaching work from 1993 to 2005, sponsored by the publishing company Boyds Mills Press as a visiting lecturer at elementary schools in the United States, giving presentations about dinosaurs.

Dougal Dixon was a member of the board of governors of the Sandford First School in Wareham, Dorset from 1985 to 1987, and a chairman of the Parent-Teachers Association at the Sandford Middle School, located in Wareham, from 1985 to 1989.

Dougal Dixon was involved in excavations of stegosaurian fossils in Montana from 2004 to 2008.

Dougal Dixon has participated in excavations in the United Kingdom and Ireland.

The majority of Dougal Dixon's books are encyclopaedias or children's books concerning palaeontology or geology.

Some of his books, such as Hunting the Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Animals, Be a Dinosaur Detective, and Dougal Dixon's Dinosaurs, have long been recommended inclusions in school libraries and children's curricula.

Dougal Dixon himself considers his palaeontology and geology books, due to inspiring others to take an active interest in these fields, to be his greatest contribution to science.

Dougal Dixon has noted that the speed in which new palaeontology discoveries are made today often render portions of his books outdated before they are even published.

Dougal Dixon has hosted a Japanese programme on evolution, during which he travelled across the world, visiting, among other locations, the Galapagos Islands and the Serengeti.

Dougal Dixon is most well-known for his illustrated books within the field of speculative evolution, particularly his three books sometimes dubbed the 'After trilogy': After Man, The New Dinosaurs and Man After Man.

Reviews were highly positive, and Dougal Dixon went on publicity tours in both Britain and the United States.

Dougal Dixon's ideas have been repurposed or used as inspirations for numerous similar projects, both in print and on the internet, and have in some cases spawned adaptations and exhibitions.

Dougal Dixon has been involved in further projects since the After trilogy.

In 1998, Dougal Dixon was one of the scientists featured on the programme Natural History of an Alien, where several hypothesised alien ecosystems were explored.

Dougal Dixon's imagined world, "Greenworld", was later utilised in his fourth personal speculative evolution book, Greenworld.

Dougal Dixon served as a consultant and creature designer for the miniseries The Future is Wild and co-authored its companion book with the series producer Joanna Adams.

Dougal Dixon has consequently described himself as a "populariser", who presents the scientific information in new and unusual forms.

Dougal Dixon married his wife Jean Mary Young on 3 April 1971.

In Wareham, Dougal Dixon is the director, operations manager and chief projectionist of the local movie theatre, the Rex Cinema, and he has created claymation stop-motion advertisements for local businesses, as well as animated short films, that screen before the feature films.

Dougal Dixon is a science fiction enthusiast and has attended several conventions, often speaking about the veracity, in terms of evolution and ecology, of alien creatures in science fiction.

Dougal Dixon has stated that he does not believe in a god "as far as evolution is concerned".