Royal Tyrrell Dinosaur Museum

If you are ever in the Drumheller area you MUST see the Royal Tyrrell Dinosaur Museum.  Don’t expect to get through this in just an hour or two.  It is huge and would take several days if you were to stop and read all the signage.

It was Senior Week in Canada and since I am an old fart I got in for nothing.  That’s right!  Nadda!  That made it even better.

The first thing that greets you when you enter the displays are these guys.

Then they show you how dinosaur fossils are found.

This was an employee who showed us the meticulous job of chipping away at the rock that was surrounding the fossil to finally expose the bone.  He used a very small tool and it takes extraordinary patience.

Dinosaur Hall

This is the dinosaur hall where you will see actual dinosaur skeletons assembled as they really are.  It was a fantastic site and there were many different dinosaur types from many different ages.  All these were found in the Drumheller area of Alberta.

There was even an undersea dinosaur display.

There were many more on display in the Dinosaur Hall.

Heavy bones

The Tyranosaurous Rex display was particularly interesting.  The hip bones were lying on the floor since they had such enormous weight they could not hang them.  Instead they recreated a hip bone that was used instead.

This is a triceratops.

Bonebed

This is a pic of a bonebed much like how the bones are actually discovered.  They map out the entire area before actually removing the bones.

Aside from the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC, this has to go down as one of the finest exhibits I have ever seen.  As I mentioned previously it is a MUST see.