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THE BATTALION
Diggin' up bones
Dinosaur exhibit great for dates, family entertainment
By Eric Aikin & Kelly Preiser
The Battalion
From bones to butterflies, there is a lot to see in the Bryan-Col-
lege Station area many residents may not be aware of. The Brazos
Valley Museum of Natural history offers these kinds of different
things for visitors to enjoy.
“It’s a little gem of a museum,” said Dr. Thomas Lynch,, execu
tive director of the museum and an adjunct professor at Texas A&M.
“Most college students are unaware of it, but it’s a wonderful place
to take dates or parents when they are visiting. It offers a lot to do
that you can’t do on campus.”
Nivia Maldonado, operations manager of the museum, said she
agreed that the museum is a great date place.
“It’s different than the usual dinner and a movie,” she said.
The museum is featuring an exhibit titled T-rex: King of the
Dinosaurs. Maldona
do-said the exhibit
is exciting for
the museum because it offers something different than the
other exhibits.
“We don’t have access to bones in our normal exhibit,”
Maldonado said. “Guests implied they were interested [in see
ing a dinosaur exhibit], so we are glad to have one here.”
Lynch said he believes the Tyrannosaurus rex exhibit has
been successful due to people’s interest in things unknown to
them, such as the dinosaurs.
“We all go through the stage where we are captivated by di
nosaurs,” he said. “This exhibit focuses on the most captivating
most exciting of those: the T-rex.”
Lynch said it is rare for a whole skeleton to be found together.
He said bones of different animals are usually found together and
they are often too fragile to transport. Many museums use casts,
models or replicas that look just like the real bones.
These models can be seen at the Tyrannosaurus rex exhibit, al
though the museum does have real tyrannosaurus rex teeth and a
real Tyrannosaurus rex vertebra.
Lynch said that the exhibit has mainly attracted families, but he
has seen a lot of “happy” college students come through. He said
the exhibit has educational value also.
“While many museums offer noisy dinosaur robots,
our exhibits are more educational,” he said. “If
someone reads their way through this exhibit,
they will know more about dinosaurs than they
came in knowing.”
One part of the exhibit allows visitors to
look through binoculars and see what a di
nosaur might have seen.
Maldonado and Lynch said this is their fa
vorite part of the exhibit, and Lynch said visitors
spend the most time at this section.
“The binoculars show you what a predator with its eyes faced
forward like the T-rex might see,” Lynch said. “Predators have
binocular vision like cats. The other pair of binoculars shows what
herbivorous animals with their eyes off to the side would see.”
Lynch said one idea brought to life in the exhibit is the idea
that birds may have descended from dinosaurs.
“Quite frankly, the view that one of the dinosaurs gave rise to
birds is becoming increasingly more accepted than earlier views,”
said Dr. GeYitry Steele, an anthropology professor at A&M.
Lynch said the T-rex display promises visitors an opportunity to
“explore the similarities between T-rex and living birds.”
“Paleontologists have studied [T-rex’s] social behavior and
how they nested,” Lynch said. “The T-rex’s behavior was very
bird-like.”
Another part of the exhibit, geared toward children, is an exca
vation site where visitors can pretend to be archaeologists, digging
up fake bones. Children can also make rubbings of fossilized di
nosaur bones.
Three-year-old Ross Romero, a visitor to the museum, said he
thought the exhibit was “cool” and looked forward to “digging up
bones” in the excavation site.
While children like Romero particularly enjoy the exhibit. Lynch
said it is suitable for adults, too.
Maldonado said now is a good time to see the exhibit because a
ticket to the dinosaur exhibit gives free admission to the butterfly
exhibit where visitors can look at live Monarch butterflies.
“You get two for the price of one,” she said.
Tours of the exhibit are available, but must be scheduled ahead
of time. Prices vary by age . The T-rex exhibit will be on display
until March 4.
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