Tag Archives: dinosaurs

May 4, 2015 · 7:30 pm

Extinct Monsters: The Marsh Dinosaurs, Part III

A close-up of Allosaurus. Photo by the author.

Click here to start the NMNH series from the beginning.

Some time ago, I wrote about the O.C. Marsh dinosaurs at the National Museum of Natural History. These are the mounted skeletons made from the enormous collection of fossils Marsh accumulated while working for the United States Geological Survey – if you’d like, you can catch up with Part 1 (on Edmontosaurus and Triceratops) and Part 2 (on Camptosaurus, Ceratosaurus, and Stegosaurus). Looking back, I noticed that I never actually finished, so here are the two Marsh dinosaurs with as-yet untold stories.

The Thescelosaurus

The name Thescelosaurus neglectus means “neglected wonderful lizard”, because Smithsonian paleontologist Charles Gilmore found the original specimen at the bottom of a crate, more than 10 years after it arrived at NMNH. Still buried its its field jacket, this skeleton had been long overlooked by both Marsh and the museum staff. Nevertheless, Gilmore found that it was remarkably complete and that it represented a taxon new to science.

An illustration of the Thescelosaurus holotype prior to reconstruction. Source

Thescelosaurus as displayed after 1981. Photo by Chip Clark.

The specimen that would become the Thescelosaurus holotype (USNM 7757) was excavated by John Bell Hatcher and William Utterback in July of 1891, while they were collecting for Marsh in Niobrara County, Wyoming. 20 years later, Gilmore discovered that the skeleton was articulated and intact, save for the head, neck, and parts of the shoulder. He even found small patches of preserved skin on the tail and legs. According to Gilmore, the animal had been buried rapidly after death, since it showed no signs of dismemberment by scavengers.

After describing the fossils, Gilmore mounted the Thesclosaurus in relief on its left side. Other than the reconstructed skull (modeled after Hypsilophodon), the specimen was displayed almost exactly as it was found. This was important to Gilmore, because as he wrote in his published description, “I am…of the opinion that specimens so exhibited hold the attention of the average museum visitor far longer and arouse a keener interest in the genuineness of the specimen than does a skeleton that has been freed from the rock and mounted in an upright, lifelike posture.” Today at least, I suspect that the opposite is true – visitors are generally more impressed by dynamic standing mounts than by reliefs that preserve death poses. Still, it’s fascinating to gain a small amount of insight into the motivations of a pioneering mount-maker.

Although it was first displayed in the Hall of Extinct Monsters, the Thescelosaurus was most prominently exhibited in the 1963 version of the NMNH fossil halls. Here, it joined the Edmontosaurus, Gorgosaurus, and partial Corythosaurus relief mounts along the south wall. In life, these animals were vastly removed from one another in time and space, but displayed together they almost appeared to be parts of a single quarry face. The Thescelosaurus moved to the north wall in 1981, unfortunately placed rather high and out of most visitors’ line of sight.

Thescelosaurus cast in the RCI workshop. Source

Close-up of the new Thescelosaurus skull. Source

When the new National Fossil Hall opens in 2019, USNM 7757 will be replaced with a duplicate cast. The original bones will be moved to the collections, where they can be properly studied for the first time in a century. Already, technicians at Research Casting International have freed the skeleton’s left side, which had never been fully prepared. The exhibit replica assembled by RCI is beautiful, retaining the ossified tendons and cartilage impressions of the original. Mounted in a running pose, the new cast also features an updated head, based on Clint Boyd’s recent description of Thescelosaurus cranial anatomy.

The Allosaurus

Built in 1981, the Allosaurus fragilis (USNM 4734) was the last Marsh Collection dinosaur to be mounted, although bits and pieces have been on display at NMNH since 1920. There has been considerable interest in this individual recently, in part because Kenneth Carpenter and Gregory Paul proposed in 2010 that it become the neotype for Allosaurus – more on that in a moment. Others are interested in this specimen because of its unique pathologies. In addition to several broken and healed bones, the Allosaurus has a massive puncture wound on its left scapula, which nicely matches the diameter of a Stegosaurus tail spike.

Benjamin Mudge collected this specimen in 1877 near Cañon City, Colorado. Known as the Garden Park quarry, this site also produced the Stegosaurus, Camptosaurus, and Ceratosaurus on display at NMNH. Although the Smithsonian obtained the Allosaurus with the rest of the Marsh Collection around 1900, Gilmore did not look at it (or any of the theropod material) until at least 1911. All told, USNM 4734 consists of a partial skull and jaw, a complete set of presacral and sacral vertebrae, a few ribs, a pelvis, and virtually complete arms and legs. It would have had a tail as well, but Mudge’s crew accidentally threw the articulated tail over a cliff while excavating the skeleton. Norman Boss assembled a reconstructed skull, which was displayed through the 1970s. The articulated legs and feet were exhibited in a free-standing case until the late 1950s.

Allosaurus skull as reconstructed by Norman Boss. Image from Gilmore 1920.

This specimen’s taxonomic history merits some discussion. The holotype Marsh selected when naming Allosaurus (YPM 1930) is notoriously poor, consisting of a single phalanx, two dorsal centra, and a tooth. Dozens of very complete skeletons attributed to Allosaurus are now known, and most specialists basically agree on what an Allosaurus is, but the lack of a usable type with which to define the taxon has been an ongoing problem.

The far more complete USNM 4734 was recovered from the same quarry as the Allosaurus holotype, during the same 1877 field season. Marsh himself actually used this specimen, rather than his designated type, to illustrate subsequent publications on Allosaurus. In 1920, Gilmore flirted with the idea of nominating USNM 4734 as a neotype for Allosaurus, but for reasons that I find difficult to follow, he decided to lump both specimens into the older name Antrodemus valens. Joseph Leidy coined Antrodemus in 1870 based on a single caudal vertebra with no geologic provenance, so this move did little to fix the underlying issue. Nevertheless, Antrodemus remained a popular synonym for Allosaurus in some circles for several decades.

Arnold Lewis rebuilds the Allosaurus skull in 1979. Image from Thomson 1985.

When the NMNH fossil halls were renovated in 1981, the designers noticed that the exhibit badly needed a large theropod mount. Arnold Lewis was tapped to design and construct a complete mounted version of USNM 4734, with some assistance from Ken Carpenter. The tail was cast from a Brigham Young University specimen, but Lewis sculpted the belly ribs and sternum using an alligator skeleton as reference. The completed Allosaurus measures 17 feet from its grinning jaws to the tip of its tail, and a form-hugging armature makes it look particularly dynamic. This mount has been a favorite among visitors for more than 30 years, although the 2001 addition of a Stan the Tyrannosaurus cast has somewhat overshadowed the smaller theropod.

The complete Allosaurus skeleton was finally exhibited in 1981. Photo by the author.

Technicians from Research Casting International took down the Allosaurus in the summer of 2014 as part of the current round of renovations. You can watch a video of the de-installation here. The skeleton will be remounted in a few years (crouching beside a nest mound), but Smithsonian researchers want to get a good look at it before that happens. In particular, curator Matt Carrano has been wondering for some time whether a partial jaw Marsh named “Labrosaurus ferox” actually belongs to this specimen. The “Labrosaurus” jaw, which has an unusual pathology caused by a bite or twisting force, came from the same quarry as USNM 4734, and appears to be the same portion of jaw that the more complete skeleton is missing. Time will tell whether Carrano’s hunch is correct. Meanwhile, Carpenter and Paul’s petition to replace the Allosaurus type with this more complete specimen from the same locality is still pending. We should expect to hear more about that soon, as well.

References

Carpenter, K., Madsen, J.H., and Lewis, L. (1994). Mounting of Fossil Vertebrate Skeletons. Vertebrate Paleontological Techniques. 285-322.

Gilmore, C. M. (1915). Osteology of Thescelosaurus, an ornithopodus dinosaur from the Lance Formation of Wyoming. Proceedings of the U.S. National Museum 49:2127:591–616.

Gilmore, C.M. (1920). Osteology of the Carnivorous Dinosauria in the United States National Museum with Special Reference to the Genera Antrodemus (Allosaurus) and Ceratosaurus. United States National Museum Bulletin 110:1-154.

Lee, J.J. (2014). The Smithsonian Disassembles its Dinosaurs. National Geographic Online. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/07/140731-dinosaur-hall-smithsonian-renovation-culture-science/

Paul, G.S. and Carpenter, K. (2010). Allosaurus Marsh, 1877 (Dinosauria, Theropoda): proposed conservation of usage by designation of a neotype for its type species Allosaurus fragilis Marsh, 1877. Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature 67:1:53-56.

Thomson, P. (1985). Auks, Rocks, and the Odd Dinosaur: Inside Stories from the Smithsonian’s Museum of Natural History. New York, NY: Thomas Y. Crowell.

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Filed under dinosaurs, exhibits, Extinct Monsters, fossil mounts, museums, NMNH, ornithopods, theropods

Tagged as Allosaurus, dinosaurs, Extinct Monsters, fossil mounts, museums, NMNH, paleontology, Smithsonian

April 3, 2015 · 10:20 am

History of the AMNH Fossil Halls – Part 2

Start with History of the AMNH Fossil Halls – Part 1.

During his leadership of the American Museum of Natural History’s Department of Vertebrate Paleontology and later, the museum at large, Henry Osborn oversaw an unprecedented expansion of the institution’s paleontology exhibits. As fossils poured in from the Department’s international collecting expeditions, these displays expanded into five separate galleries on the museum’s fourth floor. During the first two decades of the 20th century, AMNH staff was installing newly prepared and mounted specimens every single year, and AMNH was the undisputed center of American vertebrate paleontology. The increasingly marginal role of descriptive natural history in the greater field of biology at this time made the scale of Osborn’s program all the more impressive.

Nevertheless, this golden age of fossil exhibits would not last forever. Osborn supported the expensive expeditions and monumental displays through his personal connections with wealthy benefactors. The combination of the Great Depression and Osborn’s death in 1933 all but eliminated this source of income, and the museum had to scale back its activities considerably. In 1942, the Department of Vertebrate Paleontology was dissolved. Paleontology work continued under the Department of Geology, but with only a fraction of its former staff and budget.

Phase IV: 1940 – 1955

In the post-Osborn era, responsibility for the fourth floor exhibits deservedly transferred to Barnum Brown. Indeed, Brown’s adventures as a swashbuckling fossil hunter not only brought him personal fame, but made the museum’s world-class paleontology exhibits what they were. Of the 36 dinosaurs on display by 1939, no less than 27 had been discovered by Brown. Most of these iconic finds were made in his 20s and 30s, but Brown nevertheless remained at AMNH for most of his life. Even after officially retiring in 1943, Brown still frequented the museum, often giving spontaneous personal tours of the exhibits.

Brown’s Jurassic Hall, around 1940. Photo from Dingus 1996.

In 1932, the architectural firm Trowbridge and Livingston completed the 13th building in the AMNH complex. This meant that for the first time, the paleontology exhibits formed a complete circuit, an arrangement that persists to this day. Brown opted to spread the dinosaurs into two halls, making the new space the Jurassic Hall and converting the Osborn-era Great Hall of Dinosaurs into the Cretaceous Hall. Several existing fossil mounts had to be moved as a result, including the massive “Brontosaurus.” Eyeballing the widths of the doorways and corridors separating the present day Hall of Saurischian Dinosaurs (formerly the Jurassic Hall) and Hall of Ornithiscian Dinosaurs (formerly the Cretaceous Hall and Great Hall of Dinosaurs), it’s difficult to imagine how museum staff could have moved the 66-foot sauropod in one piece. This photograph suggests that the skeleton was divided into several sections, which then had to be brought down the freight elevator on one side of museum and carted around to an elevator on the other side. This would be the third and final position for the “Brontosaurus” – even when the mount was updated in 1995, preparators left the torso and legs in place.

Brown’s Cretaceous Hall, around 1939. Photo courtesy of the AMNH Research Library.

The 1930s and 40s saw a number of new dinosaur mounts added to the displays, nearly all of which were discovered by Brown. The new Jurassic Hall gained a Stegosaurus and Tenontosaurus (oddly, not a Jurassic dinosaur), and the Cretaceous Hall gained Brown’s astonishingly intact Centrosaurus, Corythosaurus, and Styracosaurus from Alberta.

Phase V: 1956 – 1990

Edwin Colbert joined AMNH in 1930 as Osborn’s assistant (he called this “a time of experiences and incidents,” whatever that means). Eventually rising to Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology, Colbert was one of only a handful of mid-century researchers studying dinosaurs. He is also notable for his public outreach — in collaboration with his partner, Margaret Colbert, he wrote more than 20 popular books about paleontology.

In 1953, Colbert worked with exhibit specialist Katharine Beneker to redesign the Jurassic and Cretaceous Halls. The Jurassic Hall received the most dramatic aesthetic makeover — windows were covered up to create a “black box” effect, while the dinosaur mounts were illuminated dramatically from above and below. The most significant addition to this space wasn’t a standing mount, but a trace fossil. Exhibit developers incorporated several slabs of sauropod tracks (collected at the Paluxy River in Texas by Roland T. Bird) into the central pedestal, as though left behind by the “Brontosaurus.” Cemented together, the slabs weighed 22 tons — apparently nobody expected that they would ever need to be moved. The fossil fish alcove, formerly part of the 1905 Hall of Fossil Reptiles, also found a home in this space.

In stark contrast to the Charles Knight oil and watercolor murals commissioned by Osborn, Colbert elected to decorate the Jurassic Hall with a series of understated chalk drawings. Joseph Guerry created the illustrations, which was then projected onto the walls and traced in chalk. The initial plan was to paint over the chalk outlines, but Colbert enjoyed the blackboard-like look and left them as they were. The exhibit team didn’t even add fixative, since it would have turned the lines an unpleasant yellow.

Jurassic hall colbert. Photo from Dingus 1996.

The Jurassic —or Brontosaur— Hall opened in 1953. Photo from Dingus 1996.

Architectural modifications to the Cretaceous Hall were minimal, although the standing dinosaur mounts were all clustered onto a single platform. Interestingly, both the National Museum of Natural History and the Peabody Museum of Natural History would arrange their dinosaurs in precisely the same way within the decade. While it’s possible that these museums were copying AMNH, this similarity is probably a reflection of the transition to more holistic natural history displays that was occurring in museums nationwide. Rather than displaying specimens individually, exhibit designers in the 1950s and 60s began to arrange them in meaningful ways — for example, grouping animals with a shared habitat. The Cretaceous Hall also gained some new specimens, including an array of Protoceratops skulls recovered during the Central Asiatic Expeditions. Signs and labels were updated with more approachable language, once again reflecting contemporary museum theory.

The Cretaceous —or Tyrannosaur— Hall opened in 1954. Photo courtesy of the AMNH Research Library.

Meanwhile, some of the oldest AMNH fossil exhibits were retired and replaced during this period. In 1961, the classic geology hall — the oldest exhibit on the fourth floor — became the research library and was closed to regular museum visitors. Its spiritual successor was the new Earth History exhibit, which replaced Osborn’s Hall of the Age of Man. Around the same time, George Gaylord Simpson curated what was colloquially known as the “Sloth Hall.” Occupying the space that was once the Hall of Fossil Reptiles, this exhibit featured ground sloths and glyptodonts, plus a sizable display demonstrating how fossils are collected and prepared. Only the Hall of Fossil Mammals remained ostensibly untouched during this wave of modernization.

The Hall of Advanced Mammals in 1982. Some sections were boarded up but remaining exhibits were virtually unchanged from the turn of the century. Photo courtesy of the AMNH Research Library.

The 1950s and 60s iterations of the AMNH fossil halls endured for 30 years, making them the longest-lasting versions to date. Displays like the “Brontosaurus” and Tyrannosaurus became immutable symbols for the institution, visited again and again by generations of museum-goers. However, time gradually took its toll. A large section of the Hall of Fossil Mammals was boarded up, since museum staff had removed so many specimens for study or conservation. Railings were eventually added to the Jurassic Hall, because it was too tempting for visitors to join the dinosaurs on the platform, Ke$ha-style.

The Brontosaur Hall in 1988. Photo courtesy of the AMNH Research Library.

Most importantly, the exhibit content became increasingly out-of-date with each passing year. This obsolescence permeated nearly every aspect of the exhibits, from the discussion of the dinosaurs’ extinction to the drab, earth-tone aesthetics. However, the most visibly antiquated elements were the fossil mounts themselves. A new wave of dinosaur research demonstrated that these animals had been active and socially sophisticated, a far cry from the the coldblooded tail-draggers that populated the galleries. AMNH had once been the center of American paleontology, but by the late 1980s its dated displays were lagging far behind newer museums.

Phase VI: 1995 – Present

Between 1987 and 1995, Lowell Dingus coordinated a comprehensive, $44 million renovation of the AMNH fossil exhibits (previously discussed here and here). The original plan was to renovate only the Hall of Fossil Mammals, since it had remained largely unaltered since 1895. Within a year, however, the project had expanded to encompass all six halls on the fourth floor, telling the entire story of vertebrate evolution. Two primary goals originated very early in the planning process. First, the “walk through time” layout would be replaced with one rooted in phylogenetic classification. The cladistic methodology for tracing organisms’ evolutionary history became the central theme that unified the new exhibits. This required a fairly substantial reorganization of existing specimens. The mammals could remain in the same two halls, but the denizens of the Jurassic and Cretaceous halls had to be rearranged to feature Saurischian and Ornithiscian dinosaurs, respectively. Meanwhile, the research library moved to a new location to make way for the Hall of Vertebrate Origins.

The Hall of Advanced Mammals was the first renovated exhibit opened to the public. Photo by the author.

The second major goal was to restore the original architecture in each hall, ensuring that both the historic specimens and the spaces they occupied would come “as close to their original grandeur as possible” (Dingus 2006). In many cases original architecture elements — such as the molded ceilings — were still intact behind panels that had been installed over them. These features were painstakingly restored, or when necessary, recreated. Classic decorative elements, from the colonnades to the elegant chandeliers, were reintroduced.

The updated Apatosaurus in the Hall of Saurischian Dinosaurs. Photo by the author.

The vast majority of the fossil mounts in the renovated exhibits had already been on display for years. Among the classic mounts, only the two most iconic displays were completely overhauled. The restoration of Apatosaurus (formerly “Brontosaurus“) took more than a year. A conservation team led by Jeanne Kelly worked from a temporary wooden scaffold, filling cracks in the aging fossils with epoxy and securing loose joints on the armature. The mount’s torso and legs remained in place throughout the process, but the neck and tail were dismantled and remounted by Phil Fraley’s exhibit company. In addition to a new head, the revised Apatosaurus gained several caudal and cervical vertebrae, extending its total length to 88 feet. Remounting the Tyrannosaurus rex was even more difficult, because the fossils were so fragile. Once again, Phil Fraley was responsible for disassembling and reposing the skeleton. The T. rex now sports a more accurate horizontal posture, and its weight is supported by steel cables extending from the ceiling.

The new fossil mounts are easily recognized by their dynamic poses. In the Hall of Vertebrate Origins, the amphibian “Buettneria” (now Koskinonodon) assumes a diving pose, while a Prestosuchus charges with its tail aloft. Among the dinosaurs, a new Deinonychus mount (assembled in part from previously-unidentified historic material) is posed in mid-leap. Finally, the dog-like Amphicyon chases the tiny antelope Ramoceros in the Hall of Advanced Mammals.

In the Hall of Vertebrate Origins, a new Koskinodon mount represents the vertebrates’ critical transition to terrestrial life. Photo by the author.

The AMNH fossil halls represent one of the most exhaustively complete fossil collections in the world, but these exhibits ultimately tell two stories. On one hand, we have the story represented by the fossils themselves. The exhibit is an extended genealogy, tracing our origins across 500 million years of deep time. On the other hand, we have the museum’s history, which highlights both the praiseworthy and the ugly sides of 20th century science. It reminds us where our society has been and where it needs to go. Both stories are relevant to each and every person passing through these halls, and laudably, the latest renovation highlights both.

References

Colbert, E.H. (1958). Chalk Murals. Curator 4:10-16.

Dingus, L. (1996). Next of Kin: Great Fossils at the American Museum of Natural History. New York, NY: Rizzoli International Publications, Inc.

Norell, M, Gaffney, E, and Dingus, L. (1995). Discovering Dinosaurs in the American Museum of Natural History. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.

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Filed under AMNH, dinosaurs, exhibits, fossil mounts, history of science, mammals, museums, reptiles

Tagged as amnh, Barnum Brown, brontosaurus, dinosaurs, Edwin Colbert, evolution, fossil mounts, fossils, Henry Osborn, history of science, museums, natural history museums, paleontology, Tyrannosaurus

March 11, 2015 · 8:43 pm

The Carnegie Quarry Diaspora

About 150 million years ago, a severe drought ravaged the western interior of North America. In eastern Utah, malnourished dinosaurs gathered near a dwindling river. Unwilling or unable to leave the water source, they eventually died of thirst or disease. When rain finally returned to the region, three or four successive flash floods washed dozens of animal carcasses into a relatively small depositional area to the southeast. Today, this site is known as the Carnegie Quarry at Dinosaur National Monument, and it is one of the most incredible fossil sites in the world.

Dinosaur National Monument interns collect data on the quarry wall. Source

Today, a structure encompassing a 180-foot section of the deposit (less than half its total length) allows visitors to view nearly 1400 dinosaur bones in situ. However, the fossils on display at Dinosaur National Monument represent only a portion of the material found at the Carnegie Quarry. Between the site’s discovery in 1908 and the establishment of the quarry wall exhibit, more than 20 reasonably complete dinosaur skeletons and dozens more incomplete specimens were excavated and distributed to museums in the US and Canada. No less than eleven mounted skeletons have been created from this material, and they are all still on display today. Although they are thousands of miles from their place of discovery and exhibited in four different cities, these mounts all represent individuals that lived and died in the same environment. They may have even encountered each other in life!

The Discovery

Earl Douglass was already an established fossil hunter when the Carnegie Museum of Natural History hired him in 1902. Late in the 1909 field season, Douglass was prospecting near the confluence of the Green and Yampa Rivers when he spotted a series of sauropod vertebrae eroding out of the rocks. Once Douglass and his crew began excavating the fossils, it became apparent that they had not just one remarkably complete dinosaur, but several. Douglass called it a “beautiful sight,” and CMNH director William Holland could barely contain his glee in his reports back to the Pittsburgh museum. Under Douglass’s management, CMNH crews worked at what became known as the Carnegie Quarry for 13 years. The dinosaur fossils were jumbled and often overlaid one another, so the excavators had to work on multiple skeletons simultaneously. The especially hard sandstone also slowed their work, and the team regularly resorted to huge horse-drawn plows and even dynamite to reach the fossils. Eventually railway tracks were installed to help transport blocks of sandstone out of the quarry.

In 1915, Holland successfully petitioned Woodrow Wilson to preserve the site as a national monument. CMNH crews continued to excavate until early 1923. At that point, their primary benefactor Andrew Carnegie had died, and funding for field work was dwindling. Other museums collected from the quarry periodically in the years that followed, but Douglass’s idea to contain the remaining fossils in an on-site museum was not realized until 1958.

The Mounts

CMNH Apatosaurus. Historic photo from McGinnis 1982; modern photo source.

Apatosaurus louisae – CM 3018

The CMNH Apatosaurus was the first dinosaur discovered at the Carnegie Quarry. After Douglass first spotted the articulated caudal vertebrae in August of 1909, his crew spent several months extracting the rest of the skeleton from the rocks. The excavation continued into early 1910, and by the time they were finished they had the most complete Apatosaurus ever found – a title the specimen holds to this day. Holland mounted the 77-foot skeleton alongside the museum’s Diplodocus in just three years, at the time a record for a sauropod mount.

Holland famously left his Apatosaurus headless for decades due to a disagreement with Henry Osborn of the American Museum of Natural History. Douglass recovered a skull that almost certainly belonged to the Apatosaurus, but Holland opted not to use it because it contradicted the sculpted head already in place on the AMNH Apatosaurus mount. After Holland’s death in 1932, museum staff quietly added a casted Camarasaurus skull as a placeholder. This was finally replaced with a proper Apatosaurus skull in 1979. More recently, the team at Phil Fraley Productions disassembled and restored the Apatosaurus, along with the rest of the classic CMNH dinosaurs. Since 2007, this specimen has been back on display in a more graceful modern pose.

AMNH Barosaurus. Source

Barosaurus lentus – AMNH 6341

When the CMNH team discovered this skeleton in 1912, they assumed it was yet another specimen of the well-known Diplodocus. It was harvested for parts, with portions sent to CMNH, the United States National Museum, and the University of Utah to supplement their displays. When the specimen turned out to be the more obscure sauropod Barosaurus, it languished in pieces for many years. Barnum Brown of AMNH was making a circuit of the fossil collections at various natural history museums when he rediscovered this specimen. Through a series of purchases and trades, the Barosaurus was reunited at AMNH in 1929.

Nevertheless, AMNH quickly abandoned plans to mount the Barosaurus – the museum already had a sauropod on display, and there wasn’t enough floor space for another one. It wouldn’t go on display until 1991, when Lowell Dingus conceived of the idea to mount the Barosaurus in a spectacular rearing pose as part of the renovation of the Theodore Roosevelt Rotunda. Peter May took on the project – one of the first mounts produced by his company Research Casting International. The resulting display, actually a cast, is the tallest free-standing dinosaur mount in the world.

ROM Barosaurus. Source

Barosaurus lentus – ROM 3670

Douglass recovered a second partial Barosaurus skeleton in 1912, which consisted of a mostly complete torso and parts of each leg. It stayed in the CMNH collections for many years, until they traded it to the Royal Ontario Museum in 1962. ROM staff intended to mount the skeleton, but once again this was cancelled due to a lack of space. David Evans was developing a new ROM paleontology exhibit in 2007 when he learned that the museum had most of a Barosaurus sitting in its collections. With only weeks remaining before the exhibit’s opening, Evans tapped Research Casting International to mount the sauropod, supplemented with a replica neck and tail from the AMNH version.

CMNH Allosaurus. Historic photo source; modern photo source.

Allosaurus fragilis – CM 11844

Several Allosaurus specimens are known from the Carnegie Quarry, but the one on display at CMNH is one of the largest. Douglass and his team excavated this 35-foot skeleton between 1913 and 1915. The mount was built in 1938. Although the specimen included a partial skull, the exhibit team swapped it with a cast of a more complete skull (also found in the Carnegie Quarry) from the collections of the University of Utah. This mount also includes casts of the arms of USNM 4734, an Allosaurus collected for O.C. Marsh.

CMNH Stegosaurus. Historic photo source; modern photo source.

Stegosaurus ungulatus – CM 11341

The CMNH Stegosaurus is a composite of several individuals excavated from the Carnegie Quarry between 1920 and 1922. Museum staff completed the 21 foot-long mount in 1940, using a skull cast from USNM 8612. Casts of this skeleton were distributed to several other museums at some point, one of which is on display at the University of Nebraska State Museum. Phil Fraley’s company remounted the CMNH original in 2007.

Carnegie Camarasaurus. Source

Camarasaurus lentus – CM 11338

This juvenile Camarasaurus is the most complete sauropod ever found. It is displayed as a relief mount almost exactly as it was discovered, with two exceptions. The left leg was swapped with a more complete one from another individual, and the tail was re-positioned to create a more aesthetically pleasing mount. Casts of this skeleton are displayed at museums throughout the United States, including Dinosaur National Monument, but the original is at CMNH. ~~This specimen is also notable because its left scapula is preserved in its life position, making it a helpful model for skeletal reconstructions and exhibit mounts.~~

NMNH Camarasaurus. Photo by the author.

Camarasaurus lentus – USNM 13786

The second best Camarasaurus also comes from Carnegie Quarry, but it is a considerably larger individual. Only the tail and a few odds and ends were missing. CMNH kept the specimen for several years before trading it to USNM in 1933 for a set of Pliocene horse skeletons. Norman Boss prepared the specimen in full view of the public during the 1936 Texas Centennial Exposition – one of the first known examples of such an exhibit. The completed mount appeared at USNM in the 1950s, sporting the tail of another Camarasaurus. At over 30 feet long, this skeleton is one of the largest dinosaurs on display at the Smithsonian. Unfortunately, the death pose somewhat limits the effect. The Camarasaurus was taken off exhibit in late 2014 for conservation and remounting. When it returns, it will be standing on its feet for the first time in 150 million years, taking its rightful place as one of the museum’s most impressive dinosaurs.

DMNH Diplodocus. Source

Diplodocus longus – DMNH 1494

Since this Dipldodocus was found somewhat disarticulated, Douglass suggested that the carcass may have been twisted apart while rolling downstream. AMNH held on to this skeleton for some time before trading it to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science in 1936 for two mammoth skeletons. Preparator Phillip Reinheimer mounted the skeleton with the help of 40 workers assigned to the museum through the Works Progress Administration. Additional Diplodocus fossils collected by William DeWeese (actually the first dinosaur specimens acquired by the museum) were also used to complete the mount. The Diplodocus remained on view until 1989, when Ken Carpenter and others restored and remounted the sauropod, elevating its tail and making its neck sweep gracefully to the left. The improved mount has been on display since 1995.

CMNH Camptosaurus. Historic photo from McGinnis 1982; modern photo source.

Camptosaurus aphanoecetes – CM 11337

Douglass found this controversial small ornithopod in 1922, and correctly matched it with an isolated leg several feet away. It was first identified as Camptosaurus medius, but in 2008 Ken Carpenter reassigned it to the new species C. aphanoecetes. A 2011 phylogenic study by Andrew McDonald moved this specimen to a new genus, Uteodon. Carpenter, however, asserts that McDonald’s analysis was based on an incorrectly associated Dryosaurus braincase.

CMNH staff assembled the fossils into a relief mount in 1940. The skull, hindfeet, and tail were all sculpted. During the 2007 renovation, the Phil Fraley Productions team extracted the fossils from the plaster slab, even managing to preserve the delicate ossified dorsal tendons. They then created a new, three-dimensional mount, which features a revised replica skull.

CMNH Dryosaurus. Historic photo from McGinnis 1982; modern photo by the author.

Dryosaurus altus – CM 3392

This Dryosaurus skeleton is the most complete of several collected at Dinosaur National Monument. The tail is missing, and given the completeness of the rest of the skeleton it may well have been destroyed when Douglass’s crew was blasting through rock to get to the bone layer. The Dryosaurus entered the CMNH collections in 1922, and was assembled as a 9 foot-long relief mount in 1940. In 2007, Fraley’s team removed the fossils from the plaster matrix, and just as they did with the Camptosaurus, constructed a standing mount. To date, this is the only mounted Dryosaurus specimen in the world. It is displayed alongside a juvenile Ceratosaurus cast acquired from Western Paleontological Laboratories.

National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC.

NMNH Diplodocus. Photo by the author.

Diplodocus sp. – USNM 10865

The National Museum of Natural History’s Diplodocus was one of the last articulated skeletons removed from the Carnegie Quarry. When the CMNH crew closed up shop, Charles Gilmore of the Smithsonian moved in to recover one of the sauropod skeletons Douglass left behind. In 1923, Gilmore’s team excavated a partial Diplodocus, and also cherry-picked a few extra bones from an adjacent specimen. The process of mounting the skeleton at USNM took six years of continuous work, and Gilmore would later describe it as the most ambitious undertaking his department hadever attempted. The 70-foot Diplodocus mount was completed in 1931, and remained unchanged for more than 80 years. It was finally taken down in December 2014, and will return in a new pose in 2019.

Addendum: Mike Taylor recently called attention to a gorgeous map of the entire deposit prepared by Ken Carpenter, which was what prompted this post. Check it out here.

References

Carpenter, K. (2013). History, Sedimentology, and Taphonomy of the Carnegie Quarry, Dinosaur National Monument, Utah. Annals of the Carnegie Museum 81:3:153-232.

Dingus, L. (1996). Next of Kin: Great Fossils at the American Museum of Natural History. New York, NY: Rizzoli International Publications, Inc.

Gilmore, C.W. (1941). “A History of the Division of Vertebrate Paleontology in the United States National Museum.” Proceedings of the United States National Museum 90.

McGinnis, H.J. (1982). Carnegie’s Dinosaurs: A Comprehensive Guide to Dinosaur Hall at Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Carnegie Institute. Pittsburgh, PA: The Board of Trustees, Carnegie Institute.

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Filed under AMNH, CMNH, collections, dinosaurs, DMNS, exhibits, field work, fossil mounts, history of science, museums, NMNH, ornithopods, sauropods, theropods, thyreophorans

Tagged as amnh, CMNH, dinosaur national monument, dinosaurs, fossil mounts, fossils, history of science, museums, NMNH, paleontology, ROM

February 26, 2015 · 11:51 am

Framing Fossil Exhibits: Phylogeny

This is the third part of an on-again, off-again series about organizational and interpretive approaches in large-scale paleontology exhibits (see the introduction and walk through time entries). This time, I’ll be discussing exhibits arranged according to phylogenetics – that is, the evolutionary relationships among living things. Natural history museums have displayed specimens according to their place on the tree of life since the days of Charles Wilson Peale, and more than any other organizational scheme, phylogeny is the way biologists think about the living world. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this arrangement was more common in the past, when exhibits were typically designed by and for experts. Examples of these old-school displays include the fossil mammal gallery at the Peabody Museum of Natural History and the paleontology halls at the University of Kansas Natural History Museum (neither has been thoroughly overhauled since the 1950s).

The jargon-heavy signage in the Peabody Museum’s classic fossil mammal exhibit is probably ignored by most visitors. Photo by the author.

Modern natural history museums rarely attempt phylogenetic exhibits. In vertebrate paleontology, an understanding of the evolutionary relationships of animals as identified via minute anatomical details is fundamental to our science. However, most people simply don’t think about the world in this way. For example, I was halfway through my first semester teaching an undergraduate anatomy course when I realized that most of the class didn’t really understand what a mammal is. The students were familiar with the word “mammal” and could provide some examples, but they couldn’t articulate what sets mammals apart from other animals, and the relationship of mammals to other vertebrates within the tree of life was all new to them. It’s easy to forget that even the most basic elements of evolutionary classification are specialized knowledge, even among biology students.

Describing the history of life on Earth chronologically is relatively easy—museum visitors intuitively understand the forward progression of time. But scientific classification (as opposed to colloquial categorization) requires a lot of explanation up front, and it’s easy to overwhelm an audience with jargon. While not impossible (see Neil Shubin’s masterful Your Inner Fish), it is very difficult to explain phylogeny to a general audience in a relatable and approachable way.

In 1995, the American Museum of Natural History attempted to do just that with the most recent renovation of its historic 4th floor fossil halls. This evolutionary arrangement was a major change for AMNH, since this space had a “walk through time” layout for most of the 20th century. In the accompanying book Discovering Dinosaurs in the American Museum of Natural History, curators Norell, Gaffney, and Dingus explain that phylogenetics (and the cladistic methodology in particular) is the only way to approach the study of prehistoric life in an objective way. Patterns of evolutionary relationships revealed by cladistic analyses are hard evidence in a field of study traditionally characterized by idle speculation. Norell and colleagues argue that the new exhibit arrangement shows visitors the credibility and scientific rigor behind modern paleontology.

Map of the fossil halls on the 4th floor of AMNH. Source

Communicating the rigorous and trustworthy nature of scientific conclusions is a worthy goal, and the choice to ground the AMNH exhibit in this way seems almost prophetic given the litany of speculation-heavy paleontology “documentaries” that have proliferated in the years since it opened. Scientific rigor is definitely a running theme here – sign after sign explains that popularly depicted dinosaur behaviors like parental care and pack-hunting are largely untestable speculation. To a degree, this label copy takes the fun out of an undeniably fun subject, but I can appreciate the effort to legitimize paleontological science in the public eye. Overall, the AMNH exhibits represent an attempt to train visitors to look at fossils the way scientists do, and the phylogenetic layout is central to that goal.

In the exhibit, visitors are meant to walk through a cladogram of chordates. You’ll pass through large halls dedicated to broad groups like saurischian dinosaurs and advanced mammals, while visiting smaller cul-de-sacs that represent narrower clades like ornithomimids and testudines. A central black path guides you through the evolution of life, and centrally-situated pillars along your route identify major evolutionary innovations, such as jaws or the ability to reproduce on land. The insanely comprehensive vertebrate fossil collections at AMNH make this institution uniquely capable of putting so much diversity on display (although non-tetrapods are woefully underrepresented). Meanwhile, an open floor plan allows you to spend as much or as little time in each area as you wish, and ample natural lighting goes a long way toward making it possible to study specimens in detail.

Pillars mark major evolutionary milestones in the Hall of Vertebrate Origins. Photo by the author.

The evolutionary pathway becomes considerably less obvious among the dinosaurs. Photo by the author.

Nevertheless, I agree with Riley Black that the AMNH fossil halls don’t do the best job communicating the story of vertebrate evolution to their core audience. The underlying purpose of any exhibit structure is to provide meaning and context for objects – to help visitors see them as more than neat things to look at. According to visitor surveys, the default mode of understanding for most people passing through a paleontology exhibit is what I’ve been calling “dinosaur pageantry.” After seeing the exhibit, most visitors will recall a list of cool skeletons they saw. A few might consider which ones are meat-eaters and which ones are plant-eaters, but without further prompting that’s all we can usually expect from non-specialists. It’s the museum’s job to give visitors the intellectual tools to contextualize those fossils in a more sophisticated way, but there’s a fine line to walk. Provide too little information and nobody learns anything, but provide too much and the content is ignored. Unfortunately, the AMNH exhibits fall into the “overkill” category.

As discussed, phylogeny is complicated, often counter-intuitive, and largely unfamiliar to many visitors. To overcome this, the AMNH designers rely on a fairly long orientation film, which introduces the concept of categorizing organisms based on shared derived characteristics. There are a few problems with this. First there’s the film itself, which dives right into the traits that characterize different groups – like the stirrup-shaped stapes of derived mammals and the temporal fenestrae of archosaurs – without explaining why these traits are significant. To a layperson, these probably seem like really inconsequential things to hang a whole group on. The video also presents a cladogram of vertebrates without explaining how to read it. As Torrens and Barahona demonstrate, interpreting a phylogenetic tree is a specialized skill that many natural history museum visitors lack. Second, I saw no incentive or instruction to actually start my visit to the 4th floor in the orientation hall. There are no less than four entrances to the fossil exhibits, so many visitors won’t know there is an orientation film (I sure didn’t) until they’re halfway through the galleries. Finally, there’s the reliance on media in general: do we really want visitors to spend even a portion of their time in an exhibit full of real fossils watching a video in a darkened room? Telling visitors what to think in a narrated video is easy, but it’s not nearly as meaningful as showing them the same concept with specimens (or better yet, coaxing them to reach conclusions themselves).

Hall of Saurischian Dinosaurs, American Museum of Natural History. Photo by the author.

Iconic mounts in the Hall of Saurischian Dinosaurs are iconic. Photo by the author.

Within the actual fossil halls, interpretation remains stubbornly unapproachable. For example, the sign introducing proboscidians tells visitors that this group is defined primarily by eye sockets located near the snout. An observant visitor might wonder why scientists rely on such an obscure detail, as opposed to the obvious trunks and tusks. There’s a good teaching moment there concerning why some characteristics might face more selection pressure (and thus change more radically) than others, but instead visitors are only offered esoteric statements. Relatedly, the exhibit does little to prioritize information. Most label text is quite small, and there’s a lot of it. Compare this to Evolving Planet at the Field Museum, where there is a clear hierarchy of headings and sub-headings. Visitors can read the main point of a display without even stopping, and parents can quickly find relevant information to answer their charges’ questions (rather than making something up).

Evolving Planet also compares favorably to the AMNH fossil halls in its informative aesthetics and spatial logic. At FMNH, walls and signs in each section are distinctly color-coded, making transitions obvious and intuitive. Likewise, consistent iconography – such as the mass extinction zones – helps visitors match recurring themes and topics throughout the exhibit. AMNH, in contrast, has a uniform glass and white-walled Apple Store aesthetic. It’s visually appealing, but doesn’t do much to help visitors navigate the space in a meaningful way.

Phylogenetic interpretations change quickly – Edentata is no longer considered a natural group. Photo by the author.

The phylogenetic layout introduces a number of other unique interpretive challenges. Since there is no temporal axis, it’s often unclear whether the lineage in a particular cul-de-sac cluster went extinct, continued on, or gave rise to another group elsewhere in the exhibit. Visitors that want to know which animals lived contemporaneously are out of luck. Meanwhile, the exhibit sometimes uses modern animal skeletons to fill out displays where fossil examples are limited, such as bats and primates. While these are labeled, the text is too small to be seen from a distance. The evolutionary organization is also burdened by the fact that phylogenetics is a fast-moving and often changing field of study. While the order of geologic time periods will never change, the 20 year-old displays at AMNH are already out of date in several details. For example, there is a cul-de-sac devoted to edentates, which is now considered polyphyletic, and a cladogram in the Hall of Saurischian Dinosaurs incorrectly places tyrannosaurids among the carnosaurs.

Glass architecture lets visitors see through displays and get a sense of what lies beyond. Photo by the author.

Neat comparison of mammal teeth. Too bad there's no obvious label.

This display is a great example of the diversity in mammal teeth, but it’s a confusing centerpiece for the Hall of Primitive Mammals. Photo by the author.

The AMNH fossil exhibits excel in many respects, chiefly in the amazing diversity and quantity of specimens on display. The exhibit throws a lot of good science at visitors, but falters in explaining why it matters. The point of all this is not to nit-pick the design choices at AMNH, but to reiterate that phylogenetically-arranged fossil exhibits are really hard to pull off. This is not the most intuitive way to introduce the history of life, or even the process of evolution. With so much background to cover, perhaps a more structured and linear layout would be better. In fact, a lot of my issues with the AMNH fossil exhibits seem to stem from a disconnect between the phylogenetic interpretive content and the wide-open aesthetics. Open exhibits can be great, but in this case it hinders the learning opportunities for self-guided groups of visitors. It’s difficult to imagine a typical visitor, arriving with their family or another mixed-age group, having the patience to make sense of it all. Regrettably, such visitors default to the dinosaur pageantry level of understanding, making all the work invested in creating a meaningful exhibit space for naught.

References

Norell, M, Gaffney, E, and Dingus, L. (1995). Discovering Dinosaurs in the American Museum of Natural History. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.

Torrens, E. and Barahona, A. (2012). Why are Some Evolutionary Trees in Natural History Museums Prone to Being Misinterpreted? Evolution: Education and Outreach 1-25.

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Filed under AMNH, dinosaurs, exhibits, fish, FMNH, fossil mounts, mammals, museums, opinion, reptiles, reviews, systematics

Tagged as amnh, dinosaurs, evolution, exhibit reviews, exhibits, fossil mounts, fossils, mammals, museums, natural history museums, paleontology, science communication

February 5, 2015 · 2:12 pm

Installation art in the service of science

Unbridled awesome. Photo by the author.

Earlier this week, Dippy the Diplodocus gave me an opportunity to discuss mounted fossil skeletons as objects imbued with cultural and historical meaning. Today, I’d like to take that a step further and discuss them as art. Hold on tight, because it’s about to get interdisciplinary up in here.

The Barosaurus and Allosaurus encounter at the American Museum of Natural History is one of the most amazing fossil displays in the world. Within the historic Theodore Roosevelt Rotunda, an adult Barosaurus skeleton rears to a height of fifty feet to protect its offspring from a charging Allosaurus. Although all three skeletons are glass-reinforced polyester and polyurethane foam casts (by necessity – it would be unwise to mount real fossil bones in such a precarious manner), they are based directly on real specimens. The adult Barosaurus is a cast of AMNH 6341, which was excavated by Earl Douglass at Dinosaur National Monument in 1923. The Allosaurus is a cast of DMNH 1483. The young Barosaurus is the most speculative of the lot and mostly consists of sculpted bones, but it includes casts of real juvenile sauropod vertebrae.

Looking past its physical properties, this display comes with an explicit pedagogical agenda. AMNH paleontologist Mark Norrell stated that the objective was “to imagine dinosaurs as living organisms, facing challenges similar to those that confront animals today.” When the exhibit was built in 1991, it was considered important to showcase what active, hot-blooded dinosaurs might be capable of. In this case, we have a portrayal of considerable speed and agility, as well as a suggestion of parental care and group living. The mount and its associated signage also invite visitors to consider the nature of the fossil record, and what questions paleontologists can and cannot definitively answer. We don’t know whether Barosaurus would have protected or even lived with its young. We don’t know if Allosaurus would have attempted to attack an animal more than three times its size. Even the ability of Barosaurus to rear up on two legs has been the subject of some debate. While not enormously far-fetched, this is still an imaginative reconstruction – one which challenges visitors to consider the evidence behind this and other displays throughout the museum.

However, even this sort of interpretation does not fully capture the experience of observing this tableau – there is something else going on here. The dynamic poses give the dinosaurs a startling presence, and it is scarcely possible not to imagine them as living animals. Visitors must consider what it would be like to encounter an Allosaurus charging at full speed, or to stand beneath a multi-ton sauropod. Standing in the center of the room, the viewer is literally surrounded by the mounts, and necessarily becomes a participant in the drama. Even if we ignore the representational identities of the dinosaurs and think of this display as a set of abstract shapes, it is still decisively monumental. The mise-en-scène draws the viewer’s eye around the room and up the neck of the Barosaurus, toward the vaulted ceiling. The scene can thus be described as a visual and physical intervention that draws each and every visitor that enters the rotunda into a shared performance.

The visitors themselves become part of the installation by providing a human scale. Source

As impressive as the mounts are on their own, they cannot be divorced from the Theodore Roosevelt Rotunda that surrounds them. Aesthetically, the grandiose nature of the skeletons compliments the neoclassical architecture. The site-specific composition also encourages visitors to look around the room and take note of structural elements they might have missed (e.g. the ceiling). But the room itself is far from a neutral exhibition space. It is a public monument to the first President Roosevelt, who Donna Haraway calls “the patron saint for the museum.” In addition to an array of canvases depicting scenes from Roosevelt’s public life, quotations are etched into the walls under the headings Youth, Manhood, Nature, and The State. Roosevelt’s words, literally carved in stone, speak to his appreciation of the natural world, his support for what he called “the strenuous life”, and his belief in living honorably and compassionately. Were it not for the throngs of tourists, this space could be mistaken for a shrine.

There are a few possible ways to interpret the relationship between the dinosaurs and the hall around them. We could cast the adult Barosaurus as Roosevelt’s idealized citizen. Rather than letting the Allosaurus pick off it’s more vulnerable companion, it stands its ground, for “the highest form of success comes not to the man who desires mere easy peace, but to the man who does not shrink from danger, from hardship, or from bitter toil.” Alternatively, we could follow Haraway and consider this space a monument to hyper-masculinity and paternalistic oppression. Haraway slams the Roosevelt Rotunda (which implies a male audience at the exclusion of others) and the adjacent Hall of African Mammals (which displays artificially-assembled nuclear families, always with a male leader) as products of the wealth and privilege of the early-20th century aristocracy. But if we assume – as many visitors apparently do – that the defending Barosaurus is female, the dinosaurs might be read as a direct critique of the institution’s history. While political and sociological readings probably didn’t come up much when these mounts were being constructed, intent isn’t the whole story. This is a public space, and visitors can and will make conscious and unconscious connections between the various objects on view. Besides, this wouldn’t be the first time fossils have been entwined with presidential politics.

The fossils weren’t created to be displayed in this space, but the mounts were. Photo by the author.

A museum display always involves the staging or framing of the world. It is this infusion of creative choice that moves fossil mounts beyond the realm of science and into art. As Polliquin puts it, a specimen from nature “permits or invites experience, wheras a work of art is intentionally made for an experience.” Whether they are composed of real fossils or casts thereof, fossil mounts are purposefully constructed to exist in the museum environment. Paradoxically, they are both the objects of scrutiny and the exhibit context. This is not something to hide or be ashamed of, but to celebrate. These mounts embody aesthetic beauty, deep history, and rich culture, and these elements are just as important as their scientific value when we consider their role in the museological landscape.

References

Haraway, D. (1985). Teddy Bear Patriarchy: Taxidermy in the Garden of Eden, New York City, 1908-1936. Social Text 11:20-64.

Kohlstedt, S.G. (2005). “Thoughts in Things” Modernity, History, and North American Museums. Isis 96:4:586-601.

Lindsay, W., Larkin, N. and Smith, N. (1996). Displaying Dinosaurs at the Natural History Museum, London. Curator 39:4:262-279.

Norrell, M.A., Dingus, L.W. and Gaffney, E.S. (1991). Barosaurus on Central Park West. Natural History 100:12:36-41.

Polliquin, R. (2012). The Breathless Zoo: Taxidermy and the Cultures of Longing. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.

Vogel, S. (1991). Always True to the Object, in Our Fashion. Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Displays. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.

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Filed under AMNH, dinosaurs, education, exhibits, fossil mounts, museums, paleoart, reptiles, sauropods, theropods

Tagged as dinosaurs, fossil mounts, museums, natural history museums, paleoart, paleontology, sauropod

February 1, 2015 · 3:07 pm

I Have Opinions About Dippy

Dippy the Diplodocus has been at London’s Natural History Museum since 1905. Source

Historic fossil mounts are usually taken for granted. Classics like the the AMNH Tyrannosaurus (which turns 100 this year!) have been enjoyed by generations of visitors, and it seems out of the question that they might ever be retired from display. Such was the case with Dippy the Diplodocus at London’s Natural History Museum – this cast of the CMNH original has been at the museum since 1905, and has been the centerpiece of Hintze Hall since 1979. It was therefore something of a shock when the NHM announced on Thursday that plans are afoot to replace Dippy with a blue whale skeleton. For a few hours, at least, this was huge news. #Savedippy was trending internationally, memes were created, and petitions sprang up to keep the mount in place. To me, it was inspiring to see how much people care about this mounted skeleton. I’ve repeatedly argued on this blog that fossil mounts take on second lives in museums, and have cultural and historical meaning independent of their identities as scientific specimens. The outpouring of love for Dippy is as clear an example as I could ever hope for.

Things seemed to calm down once a few editorials in favor of the change made the rounds, most notably pieces at the Huffington Post, the Conversation, and the Telegraph. These authors make a strong case for the blue whale: it’s the largest animal to ever exist, but it’s on the brink of extinction. It reminds us of our role as stewards of the planet, and the impacts the choices we make today will have on future generations. Meanwhile, the opposition hasn’t offered much beyond “kids like dinosaurs.” Personally, I’m not steadfastly opposed to the change. A whale is an excellent symbol for the importance of protecting the natural world, and it certainly beats losing exhibit space to a new cafe or gift shop. I’ve also never been to the NHM, and my heart already belongs to another Diplodocus, so I don’t really have a dog in this fight. Still, Dippy is an irreplaceable monument deeply entrenched in history, and certainly deserves a thoughtful defense.

The MNH released this concept art of the new display. Source

Exhibit company Casson Mann prepared this concept art of the new display. Source

To review, the original Dippy fossils were collected in 1899 near Medicine Bow, Wyoming by a team funded by Andrew Carnegie. The Pittsburgh-based industrialist/philanthropist wanted to make a name for his newly-founded Carnegie Museum of Natural History by displaying the first-ever mounted skeleton of a sauropod dinosaur. The Diplodocus discovered by Carnegie’s team was (and still is) one of the most complete sauropod specimens ever found. Nevertheless, they lost the race to public display: the American Museum of Natural History unveiled its composite “Brontosaurus” mount in March of 1905*, while Carnegie was still waiting for his museum building to be finished. Not to be bested by the New York competition, Carnegie offered a complete plaster cast of the Diplodocus skeleton to King Edward VII. The replica now known as Dippy was on display in London before the end of the year. After completing a mount of the original fossils at CMNH in 1907, Carnegie went on to produce seven more Diplodocus casts, which he gifted to various European heads of state (read the full story here). In addition, at least four other Dippy replicas have been created since Carnegie’s death in 1919. Whether we consider all versions or just the London cast, Dippy the Diplodocus is among the most-viewed animal skeletons in the world. Its cultural impact, particularly in Europe, is astounding. More than any other specimen, it can be argued that this one made “dinosaur” a household word throughout the world.

*Natural history historian Ilja Nieuwland once commented that the first cast – the one still on display in London – was temporarily assembled in ~~a Pittsburgh warehouse~~ the Pittsburgh Exposition Society Hall in 1904. It could therefore be claimed that this was actually the first sauropod mount.

The Diplodocus cast in London debuted two years before the Pittsburgh original.

And yet, one of the recurring arguments to replace Dippy in the Hintze Hall is that it’s “just a copy” or worse, “a fake.” Of course, referring to a fossil cast in this way is a flagrant misrepresentation. Casts are exact replicas of real specimens, full stop. You can read about the reasons casts are made in the Fossil Mount FAQs, but suffice it to say that replicas like Dippy are just as useful to researchers as the originals they are based on in most respects – some have even been used for microscopic analysis. At the very least, it’s downright inflammatory to dismiss a cast as though it were a P.T. Barnum-era forgery.

But let’s say we don’t care about that, and we must adhere to a conception of authenticity that doesn’t allow for casts. Even then, this particular cast is a 109 year-old historic icon. Despite being made of plaster, this replica introduced the world to the immensity of deep time. Carnegie himself described it as way to foster international peace. It gave the multilingual troops in the first world war a shared word with which to refer to tanks. It was a harbinger of globalization and mass production. And yes, it has enchanted generation upon generation of schoolchildren. NHM director Michael Dixon said that the blue whale will bring the museum’s “societally relevant research” to the forefront, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a natural history specimen more societally relevant than Dippy.

Blue whale model at AMNH. Photo by the author.

Never let it be said that blue whales aren’t impressive. This model at AMNH is staggeringly huge. Photo by the author.

That brings me to the most irksome pro-whale argument. Michael Rundle contends that the whale “is “more profound than Dippy could ever be. We still share a planet, and a destiny, with this weightless behemoth.” It is true that blue whales are incredible, awe-inspiring animals, with a fate that depends directly on our own commitment to preservation. At the entrance to the NHM, the whale skeleton will be a powerful tool for educating audiences about the fragile condition of the world around us. But dinosaurs are just as relevant to ecological education. The best way to understand the modern biodiversity crisis is to look to the past. The fossil record lets us observe how organisms have responded to climate change, habitat loss, and invasive species over 4.5 billion years. In turn, this information helps us make informed choices about our future. A sauropod like Dippy is a particularly useful teaching tool. It could demonstrate how keystone herbivores can shape their environment. Or it could be compared to a mammoth or an elephant to show how different flora can lead to the evolution of completely different megaherbivores. The NHM’s rhetoric in favor of the whale unfortunately reinforces the idea that past life is dead, gone, and irrelevant. Nothing could be futher from the truth.

Plus, nothing’s cooler than a sauropod.

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Filed under dinosaurs, exhibits, fossil mounts, history of science, mammals, museums, NHM, opinion, reptiles, sauropods, science communication

Tagged as dinosaurs, diplodocus, fossil mounts, NHM London, paleontology, sauropod, science communication, whales

January 2, 2015 · 1:14 pm

Dinosaurs on display in 2014

Instead of repeating last year’s navel-gazing, I’m going to try something a little more interesting with my obligatory year-in-review*. This post will recap 2014’s big events in museum paleontology – I’ve covered some of it before, but there’s plenty that I missed as well.

Out with the Old

Concept art for the new NMNH fossil hall, opening 2019.

I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that the most important event in the world of fossil exhibits this year was the closing of the National Museum of Natural History’s east wing. This is the world’s most-visited natural history museum, and the fossil mounts on display here have been among the most widely-viewed anywhere. The east wing has been home to paleontology displays since the building opened more than a century ago, but until now it has never undergone a complete, wall-to-wall modernization. Since the halls closed in April, NMNH staff have made significant progress de-installing the old displays, including some mounted skeletons that have been on display for over 80 years. Over the next five years, this historic space will be restored to it’s original neo-classical glory, and eventually remade into a new chronicle of the history of life on Earth suitable for the 21st century.

NMNH was among the last of the classic American natural history museums to commit to a post-dinosaur renaissance overhaul (the American Museum of Natural History started the trend in 1995, followed by the Field Museum and the Carnegie Museum). All eyes are now on the Peabody Museum of Natural History, where the great hall of fossil reptiles still looks much as it did sixty years ago. A plan is in place for a $30 million renovation, and the museum is currently soliciting donations to fund the project. For now, however, New Haven is one of the last places in North America where visitors can still see early-20th century dinosaur mounts.

In With the New

Spinosaurus at the National Geographic Explorer’s Hall. Photo by the author.

Several new temporary and traveling fossil exhibits opened in the United States this year. The biggest splash was made by “Spinosaurus: Lost Giant of the Cretaceous”, which I reviewed in September. Premiering at the National Geographic Explorer’s Hall in Washington DC, this exhibit is science outreach on a grand scale. It debuted alongside a technical paper by Nizar Ibrahim and colleagues that redescribed the well-known Spinosaurus as a short-legged analogue to early whales. While there has been some skepticism about the paper’s conclusions, credit must be given for such an ambitious public display of up-to-the-minute research. The exhibit, which includes a 50-foot reconstruction of a swimming Spinosaurus skeleton, will be on display in Washington through April 12. After that, it begins its world tour in Germany.

Washington, DC got a second new paleontology exhibit this Fall in the form of “The Last American Dinosaurs” at NMNH. Focusing on the North American ecosystem that existed just before the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event, this exhibit will serve as an interim dinosaur attraction while the main fossil hall is being renovated. The Last American Dinosaurs is more than a stopgap, however – it’s a remarkably well-crafted look at ecology and the phenomenon of extinction, both in the past and in the present.

Other 2014 fossil exhibits of note include “Tiny Titans: Dinosaur Eggs and Babies” at the Peabody Museum, and “Pterosaurs: Flight in the Age of Dinosaurs” at AMNH. Tiny Titans didn’t feature any show-stopping fossil mounts, but it was nevertheless a charming, kid-friendly exhibit focused on how different groups of dinosaurs raised their young. I thoroughly enjoyed it, particularly the gorgeous artwork by Luis Rey. I missed my chance to check out Pterosaurs (it closes this week), so if you were able to see it please share your thoughts!

Mount of the Year

Sophie the Stegosaurus at the Natural History Museum in London. Source

What was the coolest mounted fossil skeleton created this year? For the runner up, I’d pick the aforementioned Spinosaurus. Created by RCI and Acme Design under the direction of Paul Sereno’s lab at the University of Chicago, this replica skeleton embodies both the possibilities and pitfalls of digital technology. The Spinosaurus mount is based on a digital composite of laser-scanned fossils held in at least three countries, as well as scaled-up bones from related animals like Suchomimus, and a fair amount of sculpted material. On one hand, it’s incredible that a unified vision of this animal can be willed into three-dimensional existence. However, one could reasonably voice concern about presenting a somewhat controversial hypothesis in a format that implies authenticity. Virtually all fossil mounts are composites to some degree, but it seems we’re still working out the limits of how far this concept can be taken.

In contrast, I have no reservations in granting Mount of the Year to Sophie the Stegosaurus. Unveiled on December 4th at London’s Natural History Museum, this is the most complete Stegosaurus specimen known and the first example of this species to be displayed in Europe. It’s also the first new dinosaur skeleton to be added to historic NHM exhibit halls in more than a century. After the museum purchased the skeleton from a private dealer in 2013, Paul Barrett and Charlotte Brassey have been carefully examining (and laser-scanning) every inch of it for the better part of the last year. New data on the biomechanics and behavior of Stegosaurus is due out soon, but for now the public can enjoy the 18-foot skeleton in a dramatic display at the museum. In addition to the impressive work creating a dynamic pose with nearly invisible supports, I’m particularly taken by NHM’s outreach efforts, which explain the importance of this skeleton for a broad range of audiences.

All in all, 2014 was a pretty good year for paleontology on display. While fossil exhibits remained stagnant for much of the 20th century, the last decade plus has seen an explosion of displays to feed the public’s insatiable appetite for dinosaurs. Perhaps in the future we will call this time the second golden age of fossil mounts!

*For the record, Dinosours! got about 26,000 visitors last year, many of which I owe to the good people at Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs and SV-POW. My review of the Spinosaurus exhibit was by far the most popular post, followed by the two-parter on Triceratops posture and the true story of the mismatched “Brontosaurus” skull.

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Filed under AMNH, dinosaurs, exhibits, fossil mounts, museums, NMNH, opinion, theropods, thyreophorans

Tagged as dinosaurs, fossil mounts, fossils, museums, natural history museums, paleontology, Stegosaurus, year in review

December 23, 2014 · 2:01 pm

So long, Diplodocus

USNM 10865 in the Hall of Extinct Monsters, circa 1932. Photo courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution Archives.

USNM 10865, shortly after its introduction in 1931. Photo courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution Archives.

Since the National Museum of Natural History fossil halls closed for renovation this past April, I’ve made a habit of checking the webcam in Hall 2 every couple weeks or so. For a while, it didn’t look like much was happening – the first waves of de-installation occurred out of view, toward the back of the gallery. Eventually, however, the iconic dinosaur mounts started coming down. The Allosaurus vanished in mid-July. The Stegosaurus and Camptosaurus were gone in September. By late October, the exhibit team had started cutting back the elevated platform and surrounding walkway where most of the standing dinosaur mounts had stood. This was when the process got really interesting, because previous renovations to this space over the past century have always been additive. Old exhibit panels were boarded over and forgotten decades ago, and even some elements of the 1911 Hall of Extinct Monsters, such as the John Elliot fresco “Diana of the Tides”, are still buried in these walls. To hear about these time capsules of science history being unsealed over the past few months has been absolutely thrilling.

But when I checked the webcam last Tuesday, I was met with a slight sinking feeling. The Diplodocus, the centerpiece of this hall for the last 83 years, was gone.

Hall 2 at NMNH, as of December 23, 2014. Source

After it was excavated from Dinosaur National Monument in 1923, USNM 10865 took Charles Gilmore, Norman Boss, Thomas Horne, and John Barrett nearly a decade to prepare and mount. Aside from an an adjustment to the neck supports in the early 80s (making it hang from the ceiling, rather than being propped up from the floor), the Diplodocus remained in place and unmodified for longer than the average American lifespan. Generations of visitors have gazed up at it, and those lucky enough to view it before 1963 were able to walk under it. This mount has unquestionably taken on a second life: it is an institutional and regional icon as much as it is a dinosaur that once roamed a Jurassic floodplain. And in three days, NMNH collections staff and specialists from Research Casting International cleared every trace of it – well over 200 individual bones – from the hall.

The Diplodocus, as it stood from 1963 through 1981. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution Archives.

The Diplodocus, as seen from 1963 through 1981. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution Archives.

I can’t help but feel a twinge of sadness to see the Diplodocus go. I’ve been visiting the sauropod since before I could talk. I knew it as a toddler, as a high school volunteer, as a fresh-out-of college-intern, and as a museum professional. Even though the fossil halls have been closed for months, I suppose it was comforting to know that the Diplodocus was still standing on the other side of those barriers. But now it’s actually gone, and that makes it really sink in that the NMNH fossil hall that I knew – the one that inspired and nurtured my life-long interest in paleontology, is gone for good.

An early sketch of USNM 10865’s new home – anchoring the Jurassic ecosystem display.

Of course, the now-disarticulated Diplodocus fossils are in the best possible hands. The veteran team at RCI will conserve, restore, and eventually remount them in a stunning, dynamic pose. What’s more, the renovated fossil hall in which it will be reintroduced is going to be awesome – structurally, aesthetically, and pedagogically. It will contextualize classic specimens like the Diplodocus within a modern understanding of how the ancient past is connected to our present and future, while simultaneously honoring this space’s history and heritage. I can’t wait.

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Filed under dinosaurs, exhibits, fossil mounts, history of science, museums, NMNH, sauropods

Tagged as dinosaurs, diplodocus, fossil mounts, history of science, museums, NMNH, paleontology, Smithsonian

November 24, 2014 · 7:47 pm

The Last American Dinosaurs Has Arrived!

Hatcher the Triceratops greets visitors at the entrance to The Last American Dinosaurs.

Dinosaurs are once again on display at the National Museum of Natural History. Opening just in time for Thanksgiving weekend, “The Last American Dinosaurs” provides a much-needed dose of paleontology while the main fossil hall is being renovated. I was fortunate enough to take part in a preview tour for social media users – you can check out the storified version, or read on for photos and my initial thoughts on the new exhibit.

Stan the T. rex is sure to be a crowd-pleaser.

A Triceratops growth series reveals how much we’ve learned about the lives of dinosaurs over the last 25 years.

As promised, there are plenty of dinosaurs on view. Specifically, these are the dinosaurs of Maastrichtian North America, the last of these animals to grace this continent before the extinction event 66 million years ago. In addition to the mounted skeletons of Triceratops and Tyrannosaurus discussed in the previous post, be on the lookout for a hatchling and juvenile Triceratops, an Edmontosaurus, and bits and pieces from dromaeosaurs and pachycephalosaurs.

However, the dinosaurs are just the tip of the iceberg. As lead curator Hans-Dieter Sues explained within the first few minutes of the tour, the central message of this exhibit is that dinosaurs were only one part of a complex ecosystem. To that end, the dinosaurs of The Last American Dinosaurs are outnumbered by a menagerie of of reptiles, mammals, invertebrates, and plants that shared their world, most of which are on display for the first time. These specimens come from a variety of sources. Some, including turtles and fossil leaves, were collected by NMNH paleontologists in North Dakota specifically for this exhibit. Others, like the lizard Polyglyphanodon, have been in the museum’s collection since the 1930s but have never before been put on display. I also spotted a few casts sourced from Triebold Paleontology, including the mammal Didelphodon and the alligator-like Stangerochampsa.

This Polyglyphanodon was collected by Charles Gilmore in the 1930s.

Stangerochampsa and Champsosaurus are examples of animals that survived the K/T extinction.

Much like the Human Origins exhibit, The Last American Dinosaurs incorporates the faces of Smithsonian researchers and staff throughout the displays. There are large photos showing the museum’s scientists at work in the field, and the popular windowed FossiLab has found a new home in this exhibit. In addition, a large area is deservedly devoted to scientific illustrator Mary Parrish, chronicling the methods she uses to turn fossil data into gorgeously detailed renderings of prehistoric animals and environments. Videos of Parrish and others at work can be seen here.

I’m definitely a fan of this personalized approach to science communication. In-house scientists are museums’ most important and unique resources, and placing them front-and-center reminds visitors that science is done by real and diverse people, not caricatures in lab coats. A human face goes a long way toward making the process of doing science relateable to visitors.

Handwritten labels on these fresh from the field fossils provide a personal touch.

The phenomenon of extinction is another important theme in The Last American Dinosaurs. The exhibit details how an asteroid impact combined with several other factors to radically alter the environment worldwide, causing 70% of species to die out (fun fact: ambient temperatures in North America directly after the impact were comparable to the inside of a brick pizza oven). However, the exhibit goes on to make direct comparisons between the K/Pg extinction event and the anthropogenic extinctions of today. Habitat destruction, introduction of invasive species, and climate change caused by burning fossil fuels are instigators of environmental upheaval as powerful as any space rock.

This moa and dodo remind visitors that extinction isn’t limited to the distant past.

In this way, The Last American Dinosaurs is a warm-up for the key messages of the new fossil hall. The overarching theme of the planned exhibit is that “Earth’s distant past is connected to the present and shapes our future.” It will showcase how living things and their environments are interdependent, and change over time. Crucially, it will also demonstrate how our understanding of how life has changed over time is important for understanding and mitigating our impact on present-day ecosystems. The Last American Dinosaurs is evidently a testing ground for how these ideas will resonate with audiences.

Historic models of Agathaumas and Triceratops by Charles Knight and Charles Gilmore.

In designing modern paleontology exhibits, museum workers have tried many approaches to squelch the idea of the dinosaur pageant show and instead convey how the science of paleontology is relevant to our understanding of the world around us. Back in 1995, the American Museum of Natural History tried a cladistic arrangement with a focus on biodiversity. More recently, the Field Museum used the process of evolution to frame the history of life on Earth. While there are certainly overlaps with what has come before, the “modern implications of environmental change over deep time” approach under development at NMNH is fairly novel, and also quite timely. Some of the displays in The Last American Dinosaurs hit pretty close to home, and I’m eager to find out how visitors respond.

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Filed under dinosaurs, exhibits, fossil mounts, mammals, marginocephalians, museums, NMNH, ornithopods, paleoart, reptiles, reviews, science communication, theropods

Tagged as dinosaurs, exhibits, fossil mounts, NMNH, paleoart, science communication, Smithsonian, Triceratops, Tyrannosaurus

November 14, 2014 · 1:56 pm

Hatcher, Stan, and the Changing Identities of Fossil Mounts

Hatcher the Triceratops and Stan the T. rex in the NMNH fossil hall, early 2014. Photo by the author.

Although the east wing fossil halls are closed for renovation until 2019, the National Museum of Natural History will not be without a dinosaur display for much longer. An interim exhibit entitled “The Last American Dinosaurs” will open later this month, occupying the space that formally held the “Written in Bone” exhibition. The Last American Dinosaurs will cover a small but important slice of the age of dinosaurs: the final ecosystem to grace North America before the extinction event 66 million years ago. While the new exhibit will feature several show-stealing dinosaurs, the main message is that these animals lived within a complete and complex ecosystem, just like the animals of today. The exhibit will also cover the phenomenon of extinction, and how massive environmental change (whether caused by a giant space rock or by human activity) can drastically alter the course of life on Earth.

What I’d like to discuss in this post are the two dinosaurian centerpieces of the exhibit: Hatcher the Triceratops and Stan the Tyrannosaurus. Both mounts stood in the classic fossil hall for years, and I’ve already written extensively about each of them. Nevertheless, these two dinosaurs nicely encapsulate the history of mounted fossil skeletons, as well as the changing face of museum paleontology. As the ambassadors to the Smithsonian’s dinosaur collection for the next five years, I think it’s worth revisiting their origin stories.

The First Triceratops

This Triceratops stood in the NMNH fossil hall for nearly 90 years. Photo courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution Archives.

The Smithsonian Triceratops hails from what we might call the golden age of museum paleontology. Mounted dinosaur skeletons were an integral part of the rise of large urban natural history museums at the turn of the 20^th century. The opening of the American western frontier revealed an unprecedented treasure trove of fossils, far greater than what was previously known in Europe. As a result, paleontology became one of the first realms of science in which Americans were leaders, and patriotism was a significant factor in the growing public enthusiasm for extinct monsters. Wealthy benefactors of recently formed institutions like the American Museum of Natural History and the Field Columbian Museum envisioned the mounted skeletons of dinosaurs as an opportunity to increase attendance and public interest, and they provided ample funding to find fossils for display. These efforts were not wasted, as the golden age fossil mounts have been enjoyed for generations…and most are still on display today.

It’s easy to get caught up in the romanticism of this era of discovery and exposition. Golden age fossil mounts were forged into being entirely in-house. At a given museum, the same small group of staff was frequently responsible for finding, preparing, describing, naming and mounting a new dinosaur. As such, fossil mounts were typically exclusives to particular museums, and they garnered significant amounts of institutional and regional pride. New York had “Brontosaurus” and Tyrannosaurus. Pittsburgh had Diplodocus. And for more than 20 years, Washington, DC had the world’s only mounted Triceratops.

A spread in the June 11, 1905 Sunday Star profiled the Smithsonian Triceratops. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution Archives.

Built in 1905 by Charles Gilmore and Norman Boss, the Smithsonian Triceratops has been a Washington, DC attraction for longer than the Lincoln Memorial. Like most turn of the century dinosaur mounts, it is not a single specimen but a composite of several individuals. The fossils were recovered from Wyoming by the prolific fossil hunter John Bell Hatcher, working in the employ of O.C. Marsh and the United States Geological Survey*. USNM 4842, the most complete partial skeleton available, provided the torso and pelvis, while the remains of at least six other Triceratops filled in the rest of the mount.

*Incidentally, this means the Triceratops doesn’t quite fit the story I outlined above. It was not discovered or named by Smithsonian scientists – instead, the Smithsonian inherited the fossils Marsh collected for the federal government when he was through with them.

Even though it was a slightly disproportionate chimera, for experts and laypeople alike the Smithsonian Triceratops mount was Triceratops. Virtually every illustration of the animal for decades after the mount’s debut dutifully copied its every eccentricity, including the slightly undersized head and excessively sprawled forelimbs. If you can strain your eyes to read Sunday Star article above, it’s also interesting to see how the mount was presented to the public. Even in an era when museum displays were unapologetically created by experts for experts, the Triceratops is repeatedly likened to a fantastical monster. Although the creation of the mount was an important anatomical exercise for the small community of professional paleontologists, it seems that for most visitors a display like this primarily served as whimsical entertainment.

Hatcher was moved to his new home on the second floor at the beginning of the summer. Photo by the author.

After a brief stint in the original United States National Museum (now called the Arts and Industries Building), Gilmore and Boss’s Triceratops was transferred the east wing of the present-day NMNH in 1911. It remained there for 90 years, until the aging and deteriorating fossils were finally disassembled and retired to the collections. In their place, Smithsonian staff created an updated replica skeleton, called “Hatcher”, from digital scans of the original bones. This version is the Triceratops that will be on display in The Last American Dinosaurs.

A Prefab Tyrannosaurus?

Stan the T. rex, as seen in the classic NMNH fossil hall. Photo by Chip Clark.

Since 2000, Hatcher the Triceratops was in a permanent face-off with another replica mount, Stan the Tyrannosaurus. Unlike Hatcher, Stan is not based on fossils in the Smithsonian collection. This T. rex cast was purchased from the Black Hills Institute, a private company that produces and sells replica fossil skeletons (as well as original specimens, which is another issue entirely). Discovered by avocational fossil hunter Stan Sacrison in 1987, Stan the dinosaur was excavated and is now owned by BHI. Since 1995, BHI has sold dozens of Stan replicas to museums and other venues. The Smithsonian acquired its version in 1999, in part because of visitor demand for the world’s most famous dinosaur, but also apparently as a consolation prize for missing out on Sue.

Clearly, much has changed in the way museums source their dinosaurs. Rather than creating fossil mounts on-site, museums frequently contract out the production to exhibit fabrication companies like Research Casting International, Gaston Design, and the aforementioned Black Hills Institute. These companies can construct mounts using fossils or casts from a particular museum’s collection, but they also offer catalogs of made-to-order skeletons. Thanks to these exhibit companies, more or less identical copies of certain dinosaurs are now on display all over the world. In Stan’s case, the Smithsonian version has a twin just seven miles north at the Discovery Communications building in Silver Spring.

Stan can be set up in a under an hour. This version was recently displayed at Farmington Museum.

Stan replicas can be set up in a under an hour. This version was recently displayed at New Mexico’s Farmington Museum. Source

An argument could be made that this degree of replication lessens the impact and cultural value of dinosaur displays. How much allure does a mount have when identical versions can be seen at dozens of other locations, including corporate offices and amusement parks? I would counter that this is a small price to pay when we consider the substantial educational benefits of this unprecedented availability of dinosaur skeletons. Widespread casts like Stan give people all over the world the opportunity to see a T. rex in person, an experience that was until recently limited to those with the means to travel to a handful of large cities. Typically priced in the tens of thousands of dollars, dinosaur casts certainly aren’t cheap, but they are still within the means of many small to mid-sized local museums.

Furthermore, these casts are hardly rolling off of assembly lines. They are exact replicas of real fossils, and require a tremendous amount of experience and skill to produce. Mounts are manufactured as needed, and are customized to meet the needs of the specific museum. Meanwhile, museums still employ scientists who collect new fossils for their collections. The difference is that these collecting trips usually seek to answer specific research questions, rather than going after only the biggest and most impressive display specimens. Finally, museums definitely haven’t outsourced exhibit production entirely. All summer at NMNH, in-house preparators have been working in collaboration with contractors from Research Casting International to dismantle the historic fossil exhibits in preparation for the upcoming renovation.

Reassembling Stan upstairs. Photo by Abby Telfer.

Reassembling Stan for The Last American Dinosaurs. Photo by Abby Telfer.

There’s one more change for the better in modern paleontology exhibits. When the Smithsonian Triceratops was first introduced to the world in 1905, natural history displays tended to focus on the breadth of collections. Curators composed exhibits with other experts in mind, and the non-scholars that actually made up the majority of museum visitors were not directly catered to. Without any context to work with, fossil mounts were little more than toothy spectacles for most visitors. Today, museum staff create exhibits that tell stories. The Last American Dinosaurs has been explicitly designed to contextualize the dinosaurs – to show how they fit into the history of life on Earth, and why their world is meaningful today. How successful will this be? I’ll report back after the exhibit opens on November 25th.

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Filed under dinosaurs, exhibits, fossil mounts, history of science, marginocephalians, museums, NMNH, reptiles, theropods

Tagged as dinosaurs, exhibits, fossil mounts, history of science, museums, NMNH, paleontology, Triceratops, Tyrannosaurus

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