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It’s Bigger! It’s Better! Hatching the Past is Back!
It’s been five years since the Museum teamed up with Florence and Charlie McGovern’s Stone Company to produce Hatching the Past: Dinosaur Eggs. Since then, the exhibit has been enlarged, new components added, a large and a small version created, and it has traveled to numerous museums and delighted thousands of dinophiles, young and old alike. But the most important thing remains—the ability of audiences to see real dinosaur eggs and to learn what scientists have discovered from studying these fossils.
The exhibit contains much information, beginning with a discussion of types of eggs, what kinds of animals lay eggs, and how to distinguish different kinds of eggs from observation of eggshell fragments. Magnifiers allow a close-up examination and comparison of different kinds of dinosaur eggshell. The comparisons continue as visitors learn about nests of dinosaurs, and how the numbers of eggs, arrangement of eggs, and size and depth of nests can be used by paleontologists to draw inferences about types of dinosaurs.
Then we come to the babies. Were baby dinosaurs precocial, that is, able to fend for themselves right after hatching, or altricial, needing parental care and/or protection? Much recent research using fossil eggs and nests has weighed in on this question.
In addition to the real fossil dinosaur eggs, the exhibit includes a video, many color illustrations by well known artists depicting dinosaur activities, and “dig pits,” where budding paleontologists can brush away “dirt” (actually, small pieces of colored rubber) to uncover eggs of sauropods, ornithopods, and theropods. And if you don’t know what those last three words mean, you need to grab the nearest 7-year-old and come to see the exhibit.
Hatching the Past: Dinosaur Eggs, Nests, and Babies will be on view through August 25. You, and the young scientists in your family can get an exclusive preview by coming to the opening reception on Friday, May 25, 5 to 7 pm.
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| Dawn at the Rookery |
Oviraptor Embryo |
Pecking Order |
Topsy Hatching |
Sauropods Hatching |
Baby Louie |
by Mark Hallett |
by Dennis Wilson |
by Louis Rey |
by Louis Rey |
by Louis Rey |
by Dennis Cooley |
Our Sponsors for this exhibit:
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