Ducky outing to Dino Exhibition!

Posted by budak under Exhibitions
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My visit to see Sue, first posted here

Sue (the cast of her fossilised skeleton to be exact) poses for my duck! Reliable sources inform my duck that Sue indeed did not have a duck!

Ol’ Stan. He’s a bit smaller than Sue. In the world of T. rexes, the biggest boys are the girls.

The forelimbs of a Deinocheirus mirificus alone are taller than my erected duck! Imagine how big the full thing was! Deinocheirus is placed in the order Theropoda (beast-footed dinosaurs) with the likes of Tyranosaurs and Dromaesaurs, but their exact relationships with other dinosaurs are uncertain.

alarurus plicatospineus, an ankylosaur from Mongolia. As you can see on the right side, this dinosaur has balls and was probably not shy at using them to prove its point. The head is rather puny looking though, unlike the skull of the related ankylosaur shown behind the animal. Another dinosaur with impressive headgear is Dracorex hogwartsia, which belongs to the helmet-headed pachycephalosaur group. Unlike most of its kin, this beast has an ornate skull that bears an uncanny resemblance to a Hungarian Horntail and should inspire more fear and loathing amongst those who believe evolution and witchcraft are conspiring to make life on earth no less intolerable than it already is.

Amongst the first creatures to greet the visitor to the exhibition is a Tarbosaurus bataar posed in pursuit of a Gallimimus bullatus (a flock was shown in the first Jurassic Park film). Both species lived in what is now Central Asia. Gallimimus (chicken mimic) is one of the larger ornithomimosaurs (bird mimics or ostrich dinosaurs) which even early paleontologists found to be remarkably similiar to birds in build. Some believe it uses its beak in a duck-like filter-feeding manner, but if so, shouldn’t it then be called Anatimimus? My duck doth protestesh! Tarbosaurus is a close, albeit smaller, relative of T. rex and this specimen would do better devouring the egg-stealing mammal shown in the foreground above.

Cryolophosaurus elliotti. This allosaurid with a strange crest on its skull was discovered in Antarctica. According to one source, the pompadour-like crest led to the beast having the nickname Elvisaurus.

Deinonychus antirrhopus. This sickle-clawed dinosaur is more akin (in build and size) to those depicted in the Jurassic Park franchise. Velociraptor mongoliensis is a much smaller creature with a slenderer skull.

One afternoon at the Dinosaurs exhibition is barely enough to scratch the surface. My duck took in no more than a third of the exhibits. There’s also a significant corner focusing on extinction in the Singapore and Southeast Asian context, including a peaty tank with a school of Paedocypris progenetica. The only major item missing are sauropod casts. I recall seeing a Mamenchisaurus at the earlier exhibition decades ago. When will they bring the Berlin Brachiosaurus (aka Giraffatitan)?

singapore, dinosaurs, t-rex, singapore science centre, museum roundtable, exhibition review

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