Dinosaurs stalk downtown Baltimore (at last!)

["Thomas R. Holtz, Jr." <tholtz@geol.umd.edu>]

Greetings,

Last night I was at the sneak preview of the new permanent dinosaur hall at
the Maryland Science Center in the Inner Harbor region of Baltimore, MD. I
was one of the consultants on this project: Greg Paul was one of the main
guys behind it, and also helping out were Tom Lipka, Dave Weishampel, "Dino"
Don Lessem, Rob Sullivan, Martin Lockley, Ray Rogers, Kristi Curry-Rogers,
Jim Farlow, Bruce Mohn, and others I'm probably forgetting.

Present for the opening were me, Greg, Tom, and Rob (I had heard Weishampel
was there, but did not see him).

The Maryland Science Center is a kids museum, and for a decade or two was
primarily a lot of hands on, bells & whistles type stuff.  As part of a
major expansion, they've greatly increased the content level (while keeping
a young audience focus), and now have a really nice human biology/medicine
exhibit, a space exhibit, a hall for travelling exhibits (currently about
Jane Goddall and the chimps of Gombe), and, well, dinosaurs.

The dino hall includes:
-Life-sized sculptures of Acrocanthosaurus vs. Astrodon, on a replica of the
Paluxy Tracks
Casts of
-the "Pecks Rex" Tyrannosaurus
-Tarbosaurus
-Gorgosaurus
-Giganotosaurus
-"Dilophosaurus" sinensis
-an oviraptorosaur
-Herrerasaurus
-Eoraptor
-skull of Parasaurolophus
-Protoceratops
-Stegoceras
-the Carnegie juvie Camarasaurus
-various others I'm forgetting, esp. isolated elements
-eggs, eggs, eggs,
-and, best of all, the bits and pieces of the Astrodon johnstoni juvenile
mounted in position against a Greg Paul reconstructed skeletal drawing

Actual Maryland dinosaur fossils (bones and footprints)

Sculptured skeleton of Compsognathus (by the feet of the Giganotosaurus)

Much Greg Paul art on silk screens (or some sort of hanging)

An oversized picture of Eva Kopplehaus and Phil Currie (or a life size
version of their counterparts from the Land of the Giants) working in the
field, as well as many other field photos.

Interactive video displays, featuring the consultants going on and on about
this and that.  Highlights include Weishampel playing his honker; lowlights
include some UMd guy under anal-olecranon aphasia and saying "second toe"
when he meant "first toe" with regards to bird origins.

Incidentally, the exhibit is not entirely finished: there is more bird
origin stuff to come.

The official opening is this weekend.

Obligatory website reference for the revised MSC:
http://datacen.com/sciencecenter/

                Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
                Vertebrate Paleontologist
Department of Geology           Director, Earth, Life & Time Program
University of Maryland          College Park Scholars
                College Park, MD  20742
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~tholtz/tholtz.htm
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~jmerck/eltsite
Phone:  301-405-4084    Email:  tholtz@geol.umd.edu
Fax (Geol):  301-314-9661       Fax (CPS-ELT): 301-405-0796