LANDMARK EXHIBITION REVEALS HOW LATEST TECHNOLOGY IS SHEDDING NEW LIGHT ON DINOSAUR TRAITS AND BEHAVIOR

LARGE AND VIBRANT WALK-THROUGH DIORAMA BRINGS ANCIENT CREATURES TO LIFE IN WORLD'S MOST DETAILED RE-CREATION OF A PREHISTORIC ENVIRONMENT

A new groundbreaking exhibition, Dinosaurs: Ancient Fossils, New Discoveries, will open at the Museum on May 14, 2005. On view through January 8, 2006, the exhibition reveals how current thinking about dinosaur biology has evolved and changed dramatically over the past two decades, and highlights ongoing cutting-edge research by Museum scientists and other leading paleontologists around the world. Dinosaurs presents the most up-to-date look at how scientists are reinterpreting many of the most persistent and puzzling mysteries of the dinosaurs—how they looked, how they behaved, how they moved—and ultimately, the complex and hotly debated theories of why they became extinct.

Dinosaurs will feature a wide range of fossil specimens and fossil casts. Among the highlights is Bambiraptor feinbergi, one of the best-preserved dromaeosaur fossils ever found and a specimen that illustrates why paleontologists think that these small dinosaurs are one of the closest links to modern birds. A major highlight of the exhibition will be an enormous, 700-square-foot walk-through diorama of China's Jehol Forest—the most detailed re-creation of a prehistoric environment ever attempted. Visitors will get a chance to stroll back in time through the forest as it existed 130 million years ago during the Mesozoic era and come face to face with the creatures that lived there. Considered one of the most important fossil areas in the world, the Jehol Forest, which existed in northeast China's Liaoning Province, has yielded an abundance of new discoveries, revealing a rich diversity of specimens that have been exceptionally well-preserved.

For the Jehol Forest diorama, the Museum is creating multiple scientifically accurate, fleshed-out, life-size models of more than 35 different species of dinosaurs, reptiles, early birds, insects, and plants, including several species never before reconstructed, ranging from a pigeon-sized feathered Confuciusornis to a formidable six-foot-tall feathered Beipiaosaurus. The Museum is also developing several interactive computer simulations and animations, as well as a number of videos offering behind-the-scenes glimpses of fieldwork as well as a series of discussions among leading scientists currently investigating the mysteries of dinosaur biology.

Dinosaurs: Ancient Fossils, New Discoveries is organized by the American Museum of Natural History, in collaboration with the following institutions to which the exhibition will travel after it closes in New York: the Houston Museum of Natural Science (July 2006); the California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco (October 2006); The Field Museum, Chicago (May 2007); and the North Carolina State Museum of Natural Sciences, Raleigh (December 2007). The exhibition is being curated by Mark A. Norell, Chairman of the Division of Paleontology, American Museum of Natural History, and designed and produced by the American Museum of Natural History's Department of Exhibition, under the direction of David Harvey, Vice President for Exhibition.

Exhibition Highlights

Among the highlights of Dinosaurs will be a number of recently uncovered fossils, including a remarkably preserved, 130-million-year-old psittacosaur, a 2.5-foot-long parrot-beaked dinosaur from China's Liaoning Province; a 3-foot-long tyrannosaur limb bone; a partial skeleton of a juvenile albertosaur; enormous apatosaur bones including vertebrae and tail portions; a Protoceratops skull; and a preserved cicada. The exhibition will also feature the fossil cast of a dinosaur covered from head to tail with downy fluff and primitive feathers. It is the first dinosaur found with its entire body covering intact, providing the best evidence yet that animals developed feathers before they could fly. Other highlights include examples of how scientists are reexamining old fossil evidence with new technologies, such as using computer models to simulate dinosaur herding behavior based on fossilized brontosaur tracks unearthed by Museum scientists on an expedition to Texas in the 1930s. Visitors will be able to examine the latest biomechanical studies on dinosaur movement—many of them available to the public for the first time—and marvel at an imposing 60-foot-long Apatosaurus skeleton made from glistening metallic geometric shapes whose construction is based on computer drawings used to simulate the movements of this huge creature. A large "trophy wall" of mounted dinosaur skulls, ranging from the three-horned Triceratops to the dome-headed Pachycephalosaurus, will allow visitors to explore current thinking on the purposes of the diverse horns, frills, and crests found on many dinosaur skulls.

Paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History

Home to the world's largest collection of vertebrate fossils, totaling nearly one million specimens, the American Museum of Natural History has had a long and distinguished history of paleontological research in almost all areas of the globe. Since 1990, Michael J. Novacek, Provost, Senior Vice President, and Curator in the Division of Paleontology, and Dr. Norell have been the co-leaders of the Museum's annual joint paleontological expeditions to the great fossil beds of Mongolia's Gobi Desert with the Mongolian Academy of Sciences. These expeditions, which have yielded spectacular discoveries of dinosaurs, birds, and mammals, continue the work begun by Museum paleontologist Roy Chapman Andrews and his team in the 1920s when they first discovered these fossil beds during the Museum's groundbreaking Central Asiatic Expeditions. The Gobi has preserved a broad spectrum of creatures, from towering dinosaurs to lizards that fit in the palm of your hand, all in exquisite detail. Museum scientists will return this summer—for the 15th consecutive year—to explore this vast desert with their colleagues from the Mongolian Academy of Sciences.

In the past decade, Dr. Norell has also been making annual visits to China to confer with paleontology colleagues at Beijing University; the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences; and the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing. During these visits, he studies the newest fossils collected from Liaoning Province and other recently discovered rich fossil beds in China. These visits also enhance a strong and highly productive informal exchange of scientists and research that has developed in recent decades between these Chinese institutions and the American Museum of Natural History.

Dinosaurs: Ancient Fossils, New Discoveries is organized by the American Museum of Natural History, in collaboration with the following institutions to which the exhibition will travel after it closes in New York: the Houston Museum of Natural Science (July 2006); the California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco (October 2006); The Field Museum, Chicago (May 2007); and the North Carolina State Museum of Natural Sciences, Raleigh (December 2007). The exhibition is being curated by Mark A. Norell, Chairman of the Division of Paleontology, American Museum of Natural History, and designed and produced by the American Museum of Natural History's Department of Exhibition, under the direction of David Harvey, Vice President for Exhibition.