My name is Ben, and I’m an exhibition developer at a natural history museum in Chicago. This blog is a space for my personal explorations into the historic and aesthetic dimensions of natural history museums, especially the cultural and scientific legacies of mounted dinosaur skeletons. Please direct questions to extinctmonsters (at) gmail. You can also find me as ExtinctMonsters on BlueSky.
What’s with extinct monsters? This was the evocative title of the first incarnation of the National Museum of Natural History’s fossil halls (1911-1963). I find it charming, and am cheerfully borrowing it.
Can I use your photos? Photos of public museum galleries taken by me (identified as “photo by the author”) are shared under a CC BY-NC license. No need to ask permission, but I love to hear where my photos are being used.
Disclaimer: Views and opinions expressed on this blog are mine and mine alone, and do not reflect the museums and other institutions where I have worked, studied or volunteered.
EXTINCT MONSTERS 
Dear Ben:
I really enjoy your blog. We seem to be interested in a lot off the same things. I also have a blog. It’s called Expeditionlive! I blog about history of paleontology.
Paul
Hi Paul, I’m a big fan of your book, The 2nd Jurassic Dinosaur Rush, but I didn’t know about the blog. Thanks for the heads up!
I used to live about 1/4 mile from that plaque. Now my wife and i are writing our second book about Fruita, and we’re using a photo of Elmer Riggs provided by Paul Brinkman!
I (I’ll never understand why our spell check doesn’t flag that.)
thank you very much excellent work, I’m enjoying it with care, thank you for sharing your knowledge, greetings and thanks again
Great research and writing! I’m up in Wisconsin and an expert on historic relief models made by Edwin Howell (1845-1911, partner in Ward’s Nat Sci) that were displayed with fossils and casts. Howell helped set up the first meg at the NM among others. I’m writing a biography of Howell and I will refer folks to your blog!
I would like to use a hi res (>=300 dpi) photo image on your web site of the AMNH fossil horse exhibit for an academic book that I am publishing with Cambridge University Press. Would it be possible for me to use it? I would be most grateful. You of course would be credited.
Please let me know, thanks Bruce Macfadden
HI Ben
I am a curator at the AMNH researching eugenics and HFO. I came across your blog while searching for info about Osborn (a truly despicable individual). I very much enjoyed reading through the Osborn Problem. I was wondering about your story of his elevator habits (ie he would kick underlings off) is there a reference for this? I clicked the link and no go.
Thanks in advance and nice work man.
rob desalle
Hi Dr. DeSalle, thanks for reading. That anecdote comes from a George Gaylord Simpson essay, but I’m afraid I no longer remember which one. The dead link once went to a blog post by Christopher Norris (now at YPM), who I bet would be a lot more helpful!
I just want to thank you for this blog. I’m a paleo fan who volunteers at the FMNH and has been attending since I was very small (There’s photos of baby me with Gorgeous George in the main hall), and it’s great to look at museums I’ve never been to before and the behind the scenes and history of these exhibits.
Hi David, thanks for the kind words! And next time you’re at the museum, let me know if you want to chat! 🙂
Ben, I enjoy Extinct Monsters and have for some time. A question occurred to me that, it seemed, would be “right up your alley,” (I’m thinking of the “Carnegie Quarry Diaspora”): I have seen a number of casts of the famous juvenile Camarasaurus lentus CM 11338, the original of which resides at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. I’ve seen copies at LACM, Dinosaur National Monument, and the Museum of Western Colorado in Fruita, CO. How many of these casts are out there and where are they?
Just curious.
Again, great blog, and I hope it’s around for another decade too!
Thanks for the kind words, Tom! In addition to the ones you mentioned, I know there’s another juvenile Camarasaurus at the State Museum of Pennsylvania. It’s in Research Casting International’s catalog of casts, so there may well be more.
HI,
In your section on “Dinosaurs of London’s Natural History Museum” you write “When NHM was beginning work on the 1992 dinosaur hall, the fossil prep team elected to hire Research Casting International to mount the Gallimimus. Rather than using the plaster casts, RCI made a plastic duplicate of each bone and assembled them on an aluminum armature. The skeleton’s running pose meant that the mount’s weight had to be carefully managed. All the weight rests on the left leg, which was molded around a 22-pound steel rod to compensate.”
I can’t remember if RCI made the casts but they didn’t mount them. The mounting was all done by myself and colleagues, and described in Lindsay, W., Larkin, N. and Smith, N. 1996. Displaying dinosaurs at the Natural History Museum, London. Curator: The Museum Journal, 39(4): 262 – 279.
Best wishes,
Just wanted to say how grateful I am for this website- I’ve been a loyal visitor, member and volunteer at the FMNH for decades and have tried to review museum exhibits at my own (long-dormant) blog. As someone who plans to get into exhibit design, I’m very grateful for these blogs. Special thanks for providing behind the scenes information on the new Archaeopteryx exhibit. Were you involved in the upcoming Cenozoic temporary exhibit at the FMNH?