A Different Kind of Jurassic Park

If you’re too impatient to wait for the new installment of the Jurassic Park series, then you might want to consider checking out the new exhibit at the Museum of Natural History on Summer Street.

Significantly safer than a remote island filled with velociraptors, the Dinosaurs Unearthed! Exhibit at the museum will run from the end of January to May, and will feature a wide range of displays, including fossils, skeletons, and animatronic dinosaurs.

The 2,000 sq. ft. exhibition will have dinosaurs from the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, up to 18 fossils, 4 animatronics and a full size outdoor dinosaur. And yes, it will feature a T-rex.

Dinosaurs Unearthed, the Vancouver-based company responsible for this exhibit, has been creating traveling exhibitions for eight years, and has been to Major cities such as Vancouver, Montreal, Chicago, and Calgary. Halifax, however, is the furthest east that the exhibit has come in Canada. This particular exhibit will take two containers to bring to the east coast, and require two full days to set it up. The company also has two other traveling exhibitions, Extreme Dinosaurs and Xtreme BUGS! They mix interactive displays, animatronics, fossils and written information to captivate people’s attentions on the prehistoric creatures.

While the main draw is the popularity of the dinosaurs, Kyla Leslie, of Dinosaurs Unearthed, also hopes that guests will come away from the exhibit with more knowledge of dinosaurs.

“We are living in what many call the second “Golden Age” of palaeontology – new discoveries are happening at an unprecedented rate and media coverage of each new find is very exciting. This exhibit presents some of the new science about feathered dinosaurs, which some guests may find surprising. A life-size, feathered Tyrannosaurus rex juvenile and a feathered Deinonychus are two of the animatronic dinosaurs featured in the experience.” She says. “We hope each guest experiences some of the awe we feel about dinosaurs, and discovers a few fascinating facts they didn’t know before,” Leslie adds.