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Welcome to the New Dinosaur Hall!
To view details about some of the features of the Dinosaur Hall, please use your mouse to roll-over the map of the exhibition hall.
Triceratops
The imposing, never-before-displayed Triceratops greets visitors as they enter the exhibition at the start of the 1920s Gallery.
- It stands at approximately 25 feet long
- It is assembled from fossils discovered on 4 different Dinosaur Institute field expeditions to Montana and Wyoming between 2002 and 2006
- Triceratops is a late Cretaceous dinosaur, living around 66 million years ago
Mamenchisaurus
The largest specimen on view in the Dinosaur Hall is this cast of a long-necked Mamenchisauraus.
- 68 feet long, head-to-tail
- This massive beast would have lumbered in China around 160 million years ago
T. rex Growth Series
The stunning centerpiece of this gallery is the Tyrannosaurus rex growth series, featuring a baby, juvenile, and sub-adult T. rex and is the only series of its kind in the world.
- Baby - About 2 years old when it died, this 11-foot long specimen is the youngest know T. rex fossil in world.
- Juvenile - At the young age of 13 this T. rex already measured more than 20 feet long and weighed about 4,000 pounds.
- Thomas the T. rex - This never-before-seen fossil was excavated by NHM paleontologists from 2003-2005. It comes also from the badlands of Montana's Hell Creek Formation, but near the town Ekalaka.
- Thomas is estimated to be a 70% complete specimen, one of ten most complete T. rex specimens on Earth.
Stegosaurus & Allosaurus
Stegosaurus is an armored dinosaur with a back covered in large plates and with large spikes on its tail. This Stegosaurus is mounted fighting with the predator Allosaurus. Allosaur fossils have been found that show wounds from Stegosaurus spikes, which is why they're posed the way they are in the Dinosaur Hall. Long before T. rex, Allosaurus was a top predator in North America in the late Jurassic period.
- Found in Utah
- Around 150 million years old
Camptosaurus
- Camptosaurus could walk upright on two legs as well as on four.
- These dinosaurs browsed on plants growing on river floodplains.
- They likely used their sharp beaks and the strong teeth lining their jaws to bite off and chop tough plants.
Head Gear
- Stand before three enormous horned dinosaur skulls at this display.
- Horned dinosaurs in particular seemed to have evolved every possibly combination of their bizarre skulls and frills (bony collars).
- Each species had its own “head gear”!
Continental Drift
- Learn about how the Earth moves! At first, there was only one vast supercontinent, which slowly broke apart, first into two pieces and then into the smaller continents we know today.
- As continents shifted, so did ocean currents and climate, which varied throughout the era.
- These changes shaped the evolution and distribution not only of dinosaurs, but of all life on Earth.
Saurpod
- Our Dinosaur Institute paleontologists discovered this huge backbone.
- In life, the backbones of long-necked dinosaurs had hollows and struts that kept bones lightweight, yet very strong.
- When our paleontologists were out in the field, they encased this fossil in layers of burlap and plaster, and then had to transport it back to NHM.
Platecarpus plaque
- This is the world's best preserved mosasaur fossil! It's an 85-million-year-old sea monster.
- The specimen still has traces of a partial body outline, skin color markings, external scales, a downturned tail, branching bronchial tubes, and stomach contents (fish)!
- It was once believed this animal swam like an eel. But recent research determined that it swam better than we thought – more like sharks.
Fossil Wall
Adjacent to the Triceratops is a 43-foot-wall artfully showcasing 100 diverse dinosaur specimens such as bones, teeth, eggs, footprints, skin patches, and coprolites (fossilized droppings).
- The fossils range from over 200 million years old to 65.5 million years old.
- They also range in size from giant 5-feet long, 300-pound bones to tiny 1-centimeter long teeth.
- Two touchscreen kiosks work as virtual catalogs here, allowing visitors to explore what each bone is, and in some cases, turning them around 360 degrees on the screen.
