Hold onto your butts, because Monmouth Museum will be bringing dino-sized fun this fall as ‘’Dinosaurs: Fossils Exposed” will be taking center stage in one of their largest exhibits to date.
The Monmouth Museum, located at 65 Newman Springs Rd. in Lincroft, will be having a slew of life-sized fossil molds and replicas on display at the museum starting on September 6 in a “Dinosaurs: Fossils Exposed” exhibit. This exhibit will be running through the fall and the winter until Jan. 2, 2025.
This exhibit will be a 2,000-square-foot exhibition that explores the bones and fossils belonging to the giant creatures that roamed the earth from 245 to 66 million years ago (mya). Visitors can view and even touch six full dinosaur skeletal molds, stand next to a 6’1″ Apatosaurus femur and use paleontology tools to unearth ancient dinosaur bones in a simulated dig pit.
Erika Schaefer, executive director of Monmouth Museum, told Night & Day, “This is really exciting. This is a traveling exhibit. It is going to take over our whole main gallery.”
She added, “This is unique as it expands on what we already do in our children’s wings. I can see it being something that isn’t just a family exhibit, it’s not just for kids. This exhibit is bringing full skeletal molds and really interesting things that can appeal to all ages.”
Attendees should immediately be able to recognize some of the large skeletons that will be on display at the exhibition. One being the arguably most famous dinosaur that has ever lived, the tyrant lizard king Tyrannosaurus rex. A full, life sized skeletal mold and skull will each be on display for dino-lovers to experience.
This animal lived toward the end of the Cretaceous period 66 million years ago, and witnessed the extinction event, known as the K-T extinction, where an asteroid the size of Mount Everest slammed into the Yucatan Peninsula, just south of the Gulf of Mexico. According to scientists, this event would go on to kill off 75% of all life on earth, including the dinosaurs.
Other famous dinosaurs to be featured will be the animal T-rex hunted. This ceratopsian would not go down without a fight, sporting the famous three-horns and frill. This dinosaur is, of course, Triceratops, whose name literally means “three-horned face.”
Another dinosaur attendees may be shocked to see will be Velociraptor. This dinosaur, alongside T-rex and Triceratops, got the spotlight shown on them in the 1993 film “Jurassic Park.”
However, the raptors in this film differ greatly from what a true Velociraptor looked like. First and foremost, Velociraptors were only a fraction of the size of the ones featured in the movie, standing only about 2 feet tall.
One other key difference is that true Velociraptors had feathers. While the skeletal molds will not have feathers on them, attendees can read about a variety of facts and tidbits about how not only these dinosaurs lived, but as all different species of them lived.
In total, more than 25 different species will be featured in this exhibit from the well-known dinosaurs such as T-rex, to some attendees may have never heard of, such as Anhanguera.
This animal was actually noy a dinosaur at all. Instead, it was a part of a group of animals that lived alongside the dinosaurs called pterosaurs. This group of animals includes the famous Pterodactyl and are often confused for dinosaurs, but they were not.
“We know that our guests and our visitorship already loves dinosaurs,” said Schaefer. “This was a show I wanted to bring back in 2020, prior to COVID. It was just as COVID was happening. Timing is everything and it did not work out back then,” but things have since changed.
Schaefer gushed at the level of realism and quality these molds will bring to the museum. Residents who may feel disappointed that these are not “real” fossils may be disappointed to find out that most “fossils” seen in museums are also just molds. Actually fossils, while made of rock, are often fragile and incomplete.
“This exhibit aims to transport kids and adults back in time to give them an understanding of what it was like imagining these creatures,’ said Schaefer.
She further said other events will be planned in conjunction with the dinosaur exhibit, including a night at the museum, where attendees will be able to stay overnight and sleep beneath these ancient giants, and a “noon-years” eve celebration, which will “most certainly be dinosaur themed,” according to Schaefer.
For more information about the exhibit or upcoming events, visit monmouthmuseum.org.
Schaefer said, “Fossils are such a big part of our permanent collection that we have at the museum…It was a no-brainer. When we saw the opportunity for this to arise, we wanted to hurry up and get it while we can.”
“This is about bringing quality. Our team is coming together, with qualified experts, to put together this exhibit. The text panels, the detail, is something that is all historically accurate. There is a lot for everyone, whether you are a college student coming through or you’re six years old,” said Schaefer. She jokingly said sometimes it is the six-year-olds who do end up knowing more about dinosaurs than some of the staff at the museum.
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