Over the next few months, everything at New York’s famous Natural History Museum will revolve around one of the scariest creatures to have ever walked the earth: the Tyrannosaurus Rex.
Until August 9, anyone in New York will be able to see fossils and life-size models of this dinosaur species that lived more than 60 million years ago.
Among them is the first discovered skeleton of a T. Rex, uncovered in 1902 in the US state of Montana by Barnum Brown, a scientist at the museum.
Visitors will, of course, get to see these real fossils up close in all their glory, but will also learn plenty of unexpected facts (who knew this giant lizard laid colourful eggs?).
The exhibition is being used to present new scientific findings on T. Rex, including the kinds of eggs it laid.
“We found out that Tyrannosaurus rex also laid coloured eggs,” says German scientist Jasmina Wiemann of Yale Elite University, who helped curator Michael Novacek work on the exhibition.
“It’s very exciting what’s happening in palaeontology because we’re integrating more and more other disciplines and using methods from chemistry and medicine, for example”.
Museum director Ellen Futter said this dinosaur, above all others, was able to spur the imagination of the public and scientists, and was still among the most feared of all dinosaurs. – dpa
