They knew all about livin’ large

As light as a feather? Not if it’s a feathered dinosaur thundering across the landscape 65 million or more years ago.

More than 30 rare fossils variously thought to have been birds, dinosaurs or feathered dinosaurs, some of which inspired the fearsome two-legged “raptors” in the 1993 blockbuster movie “Jurassic Park,” are on display through Sept. 7 at the San Diego Natural History Museum.

No bones about it: These birds and reptiles were big.

Life-size models up to 14 feet tall loom over visitors at the San Diego show, which features lake-bed fossils recovered over the last few years from Liaoning province in northeastern China.

The trove of fossils has reignited a century-old debate about the origin of birds. Did they evolve from dinosaurs? Did dinosaurs evolve from birds? Or were they unrelated? Scientists don’t agree. The show at least suggests similarities.

Among the specimens is a long-tailed pterosaur, a flying reptile that is preserved well enough to show a head crest and “proto-feathers.” Models of 10-foot-tall Deinonychus, which some scientists now think was a feathered, flightless bird that roamed North America, and the nearly 14-foot-tall Therizinosaurus, described as a feathered dinosaur, add to the intrigue.

The raptors that hunted humans in “Jurassic Park,” although portrayed as dinosaurs in the movie, were modeled, according to some reports, on the fast, large-brained Deinonychus.

Magnifiers, X-rays and graphic panels illuminate the show’s fossils, some of which are displayed for the first time.

“Feathered Dinosaurs and the Origin of Flight,” among the largest exhibits on the topic to be seen outside China, was produced by the Dinosaur Museum in Blanding, Utah, collaborating with several institutions in China. It next goes to the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. San Diego is its only U.S. venue at this point.

Open daily. Admission is $8 for adults, $5 for children 3 to 17, free to those under 3. (619) 232-3821, www.sdnhm.org.