The Passing Of Ages

Imagine waking up and seeing these guys around you.

Nearby, above an emergency exit door, we find this beautiful stained glass.

This area starts looking at what came after the age of the dinosaurs ended 65 million years ago.

Mammals took hold in a big way in the wake of the asteroid impact. Mesodma thompsoni was a rodent like mammal that was one of them, seen on a reproduced dinosaur skull.

Early horses were much smaller than what we know today- hyracotherium appeared in North America some 57 million years ago.

The Confrontation

 Terminonaris robusta was a marine crocodilian.

Mosasaur, one of which is suspended above, is a relative of the contemporary Komodo dragon.

Beyond, the space opens up into a reproduction of a standoff between hunters and a herd of horned dinosaurs.

A pair of small feathered dinosaurs watches from this side.

The amount of detail in these reproductions is striking. We'll carry on here tomorrow.

Marine Dinosaurs

 We carry on where we left off yesterday, with more of the fossils.

Early on as they were studied, dinosaurs got a reputation as vicious animals and poor parents, but the real story is evolving to look quite different- attentive parents and social animals.

This reproduction of a nest with the first hatchling is an example.

Yesterday you saw a metal apparatus in one of the pictures. It's a pump for reproducing the possible sounds of a duck-billed dinosaur- a parasaurolophus. Check out how it sounds here.

Suspended from the ceiling are several specimens of marine dinosaurs, such as archelon, the largest sea turtle to ever live.

Champosaurs looked like crocodiles, but weren't.

Hello, Beastie

 Here we continue with more dinosaurs.

Paleontology as a profession started up in the 19th century and has carried on today, continuing to contribute to our understanding of these animals that lived millions of years ago.

Duck-billed dinosaurs are found here.

A comparison between jawlines of the edmontosaurus, seen above, with the daspletosaurus, seen in my first post, is telling of the difference of vegetarian versus carnivorous dinosaurs.