This display, like the Blue Whale, is one of the most popular and dramatic exhibits in the Museum. In this re-creation of a specific moment, a Barosaurus, an enormous plant-eating dinosaur that lived 140 million years ago, rears up to protect its young from a fierce, attacking Allosaurus. It is a scene that evokes the primal drama of predator and prey. Yet for all its realism, this exhibit—for many visitors the first one seen on entering the Museum—is a product of the human imagination. While scientists think that such a scene might have happened, we do not in fact know for certain whether a Barosaurus could actually rise up like this, or even that an Allosaurus would have attacked a Barosaurus.
Barosaurus skeletons—among the rarest dinosaur fossils—have been found in both the western United States and in Africa. This is one of only two Barosaurus specimens on view anywhere in the world (the other is in Canada), and the only dinosaur mount with a freestanding animal rearing up. These dinosaur skeletons are composed of casts made from real bones, which are too heavy to support in this fashion. Some of the actual Barosaurus vertebrae are in a case near this display and portions of an unassembled Barosaurus skeleton are on view in the new dinosaur halls.
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