Carnegie Museum of Natural History

Dinosaurs in Their Time

Contact: Leigh Kish, +1 412.622.3361, kishl@carnegiemuseums.org, http://www.carnegieMNH.org/

One of the Country's Largest Dinosaur Exhibits, which Includes the Original Tyrannosaurus rex, is Unrivaled in Showing how Dinosaurs Lived

Carnegie Museum of Natural History (CMNH) in Pittsburgh has restored its massive collection of dinosaur bones, recognized as the third largest collection in the U.S., and considered the best anywhere from the Jurassic period. A two-year, $36 million renovation opened in November 2007 to record-setting crowds. CMNH's new exhibit captures science's total knowledge to-date of how dinosaurs lived. The specimens are displayed in real-life poses-capturing life and death dramas- that visitors can walk among. No other museum in the world has created such a display.

No other museum shows the interaction of dinosaurs with the total environment in which they lived. Visitors to Dinosaurs in Their Time step back 150 million years into the American West. Visitors are dwarfed by 19 anatomically correct dinosaurs (15 with real bones), caught in dramatic poses: two T. rex specimens fight, an adult Apatosaurus protects its 12-ft. "baby" from an attacking Allosaurus. Everything around them- bones, mammals and plants- is as it was, down to the soil, which itself is made of ancient rock.

CMNH scientists are breaking new ground in our understanding of the emergence of mammals, alongside dinosaurs, in the late Triassic period. Their research of bone structure shows early mammals smaller and much more diverse than once thought -they are swimmers, diggers, or gliders, carnivores, herbivores, or omnivores. The exhibit shows how they co-existed with dinosaurs.

Carnegie Museum began acquiring dinosaurs 111 years ago when philanthropist and museum founder, Andrew Carnegie, read about the discovery of a prehistoric "colossal" in southern Wyoming. "Get one for Pittsburgh," he wrote to then-Director William J. Holland. Carnegie pursued and funded such excavation that Utah's Dinosaur National Monument was originally called the Carnegie Quarry. His original specimen-the Diplodocus carnegii-is still on display at the museum. Carnegie's dinosaurs account for a large percentage of the 386,300 visitors to the Carnegie Museums of Art and Natural History last year, which together generated $35.5 million dollars in tourist spending.

Photos Available here: http://www.carnegiemnh.org/news/media/dinosaurs.html
Additional information: http://carnegiemnh.org/dinosaurs/index.htm
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