In honor of NCTE/ALAN being in Chicago this year, I thought I'd toss in a post about Chicago dinosaurs. :-). If you have the time, check out the Field Museum:
Tyrannosaurus rex (background) with (unidentified) Homo sapiens.
The Field Museum of Natural History (Chicago): My hometown museum, still one of the best in the world. The Field Museum is part of a lakefront museum campus that includes the Shedd Aquarium and Oceanarium and the Adler Planetarium. Just up Lake Shore Drive is the Lincoln Park Zoo, and a short drive south is the Museum of Science and Industry.
The Field is home to Sue, one of the largest, most complete Tyrannosaurus rex skeletons ever found, as well as a Daspletosaurus and a host of other, less carnivorous dinosaurs (like Parasaurolophus and Diplodocus).
Sue is prominently placed in the Stanley Field Hall (the main hall), with the elephant diorama and the big totem poles. On the balcony above the skeleton is the actual skull (the real one being too big to mount) and a mural depicting what Sue would've looked like in real life.
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| Sue close-up |
Upstairs is the
Evolving Planet exhibit, which takes you chronologically through the eras of life on earth. Dinosaurs on display include
Triceratops, dromaeosaurs, stegosaurs, sauropods (including a juvenile
Rapetosaurus), and hadrosaurs, such as
Parasaurolophus. The classic
Charles M. Knight murals still adorn the walls.
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| Triceratops and T.rex face off |
And sometimes in Chicago, you see dinosaurs in the oddest places: be sure to check out the brachiosaur at the United Terminal at O'Hare Airport (a duplicate of the one outside the Field).
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I've mentioned before that one of the fun things about writing CHRONAL ENGINE is that it provides an excellent excuse to visit natural history museums and other places where paleo-stuff abounds.
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| T.rex ("Sue") and H.sapiens (unidentified) |
Over the past few years, a number of the major natural history museums have revamped their dinosaur and paleontology displays. The
Field Museum in Chicago did so a few years back in conjunction with the acquisition of
Sue, the largest, most complete T.rex. The
Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh also recently completed a remodel, changing their old dinosaur hall into an exhibit called
Dinosaurs in their Time.
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| Exhibit in progress. Photo courtesy Carnegie Museum of Natural History |
More recently, in 2009, the
Fort Worth Museum of Science and History opened its new building and a new display of north Texas dinosaurs, including
Paluxysaurus, the state dinosaur of Texas.
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| Paluxysaurus. Photo courtesy Fort Worth Museum of Science & History |
Just to the east, in Dallas, the Museum of Nature and Science is expanding into a new Victory Park Facility, to be named the
Perot Museum of Nature and Science and scheduled to open at the end of 2012. I understand they're going to be having a fantastic display of my favorite sauropod,
Alamosaurus.
By: Greg Leitich Smith,
on 6/26/2012
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