If you’ve ever had trouble making decisions, you can relate to a recent predicament I found myself in.
Over the weekend, I had the chance to visit the Royal Ontario Museum’s latest exhibit, T. Rex: The Ultimate Predator. While I wrote my thoughts about the exhibition in a previous article (spoiler alert: it’s pretty good!), I found selecting images for my article a bit difficult. Why?
There were too many good images to select from!
While I would have loved to oversaturate my article with imagery, it often leads to a bad end product. While I managed to narrow my choices down eventually, I felt that trying something new might be a way to compensate for the images I left out.
In this article, I will comprise a gallery of those images I elected to leave out from my previous article. To keep things spicy, each image will be accompanied by information about each display.
It should be noted at the start that all images in this article were taken by me (!!) at the ROM. I’d like to apologize in advance if some of the photos aren’t of the best quality; my shaky arms don’t quite lend themselves to elite photography.!
Familiar Faces, New Places: The skull of an Albertosaurus on display at the ROM (top) certainly seemed familiar, and after some digging, it turns out I had encountered this beauty before! My previous encounter came at the Royal Tyrrell Museum (bottom), where this specimen was likely shipped from. Though, it wasn’t the only one….
Cradle Robbing: This jawbone of a recently excavated Daspletosaurus from Southern Alberta is so new that it hasn’t been fully removed from its plaster jacket!
Living the Teenage Dream: Meet the awkward teenage phase of Tyrannosaurus rex! Instead of rebelling against its parents, this lanky juvenile probably acted out by hunting down herbivorous dinosaurs!
A 65 Million-Year-Old Identity Crisis: What you’re looking at is either a juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex or a distinct species called Nanotyrannus. While paleontologists have argued for both sides, my money is on the baby-rex theory.
Broken Tooth: And I thought Cavities hurt! Located in the middle of the exhibit, you may have noticed that this Tyrannosaurus has one tooth bent completely out of shape. It’s likely this deformity is just a casting abnormality, but I like to think it tried to take a chunk out of the wrong Ankylosaur!
The young and the restless: This baby Tarbosaurus is one of the youngest known Tyrannosauroids in the fossil record. Taking this photo was surprisingly difficult, as the ROM added a glass sheet in front of it. Maybe there are child protection laws for fossils?
Tyrant’s beginnings: While this small, crested dinosaur may not look particularly interesting, you are looking at one of the earliest Tyrannosauroids. Named Proceratosaurus, this small tyrant features some of the defining anatomical traits of the family, though it’s bizarre crest would be lost over time.
King’s Landing: Meet the world’s ugliest Tyrannosaurus rex! With leathery skin, saliva dripping from its mouth, and a comb over that puts your balding uncle to shame, this Tyrannosaurus model isn’t winning any beauty contests…
Special Visitor: The second Tyrannosaur skull imported from Alberta, this specimen is famous for its name: the Black Beauty. Named for its dark pigmentation, there’s no doubt that this skull is truly a one-in-a-million fossil.
Halfway point of Evolution: This model of Xiongguanlong, a primitive Tyrannosauroid from China, reflects an intermediate stage in Tyrannosaur evolution. Xiongguanlong is larger and more derived than primitive taxa like Proceratosaurus, but is still a long ways from the giants of the Late Cretaceous.
Face to Face: Getting this close to a Tyrannosaurus rex in life would have been a far different experience. To be honest, I love how there is very little separating the Tyrannosaurus from the audience, as it gives a true sense of scale without interference of elevated museum displays.
Wrong Exhibit: We have now reached the point of Spinosaurus infamy where it shows up in other dinosaurs exhibits. What’s ironic is that Tyrannosaurus is usually the dinosaur budding into other exhibits, though in this case, someone played the UNO reverse card on it!
I hope you enjoyed today’s article! It’s not the most conventional for Max’s Blogosaurus, but I wanted to try something new and this was a good opportunity to do so. If you’d like to see similar articles for other exhibits in the future, let me know!
And, If you’d like to visit T. rex: The Ultimate Predator, visit the Royal Ontario Museum! For more information, check out the ROM’s official website!
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