What are Extreme Dinosaurs?

Last Updated (Friday, 19 August 2011 10:16) Written by Raymond Nakamura

"They're scary. I'll never forget it in my whole life." That's what my six-year-old told me about Science World's new Extreme Dinosaurs exhibition after seeing it with her day camp a couple weeks ago. But she still wants to go again. I decided to check it out on my own and asked her to draw some pictures of what she remembered. Forgive my indulgence.

Alxasaurus?

Like the opening panel says, "Bizarre dinosaurs are awesome." It was fun to see the jaw-dropped looks of kids as they came in. The opening display was a collection of feathered dinosaurs. Gigantoraptor reaches up to the rafters, as big as a giraffe with the head of a monster parrot. The Confuciusornis seemed to have a disproportionately big head — maybe that's why it was named after the ancient Chinese sage. In any case, China has been the source of many of these new dinosaur discoveries. The animatronic ones move intermittently, which has a more startling and life-like effect than if they were moving constantly. The dramatic lighting with the prehistoric palm trees and roaring and growling heightened the atmosphere. The company that produced the exhibition, Dinosaurs Unearthed, is based in Richmond.

T rex

One of the things about seeing life-sized objects is seeing how big they actually are. My daughter actually thought the T rex would be bigger. It's big, of course, but not Godzilla big. It puts things in perspective. They also have panel where you can compare you height to that of different dinosaurs.

Stegosaurus

I liked how the graphics explained possible adaptive explanations for some of the weirder parts of some more recently discovered dinosaurs. One of my favourites was Kosmoceratops, which looks like a Triceratops with an extra fancy hairdo from the cover of Cosmo magazine, although speculation is that it may have been for males to impress females.

Ankylosaurus

The animatronic dinosaurs were the big draw, of course, but the exhibition also has interactive exhibits and fossil replicas of whole specimens, dinosaur eggs, claws, and dinosaur coprolites (fossilized poop). So it has lots to see and do. As one family was leaving, one of their little girls said, "Bye dinosaurs! See you later!" I guess I will too.