{"id":13768,"date":"2012-05-28T07:41:03","date_gmt":"2012-05-28T06:41:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/communicatescience.com\/zoonomian\/?p=13768"},"modified":"2017-08-07T23:16:21","modified_gmt":"2017-08-07T22:16:21","slug":"puzzling-over-tyrannosaurs-at-the-natural-history-museum-of-los-angeles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/communicatescience.com\/zoonomian\/2012\/05\/28\/puzzling-over-tyrannosaurs-at-the-natural-history-museum-of-los-angeles\/","title":{"rendered":"Puzzling over Tyrannosaurs at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Thomas<\/a>
Thomas and friends illustrate three stages of development (Photo:Tim Jones)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

How when we dig up a dinosaur bone do we know it comes from a young animal or a smaller example of a different species?  That’s a question the Museum of Natural History of Los Angeles collection of T.rex helps answer.<\/p>\n

\"Los<\/a>
Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Yesterday, Erin and I visited the new Dinosaur Hall, where for the first time fossilised skeletons of three complete Tyrannosaurs are brought together to illustrate the different stages in the animal’s development.<\/p>\n

\"<\/a>
Thomas today: looking good<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Above you see the three who died at 17 yrs, 14 yrs, and 2 yrs.<\/p>\n

Here’s the largest, Thomas, as he looked a couple of years back when we last visited the museum: encrusted in rock, but the star all the same of his own very public extraction in the Dino Lab:<\/p>\n

\"<\/a>
Thomas being uncovered in the Dino Lab (Photo: Tim Jones)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Dino<\/a>
In the Dino Lab visitors can watch the professionals at work<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\"Dino<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Dino<\/a>Comparing the three, we see that Tyrannosaurs don’t just scale up uniformly as they grow.  The eye sockets, for example, are more rounded in babies, changing to a keyhole shape in the adult.  The accompanying texts to the display explain how the relative length of the foot bone to the leg decreases from 70% to 50% from 2 to 17 yrs.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
At 14 yrs. Adolescent, but dangerous.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
2 yr old toddler Tyrannosaur<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On a lighter note.  Ever wondered what a Tyrannosaurus rex looks like with (most of) its bones missing?  Probably not I guess, but here it is:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Boneless<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This was a bit of fun we got roped into: a Tyrannosaur puzzle no less.   The bones of the T.rex are taken off the frame, and it’s up to us non-experts to put them back in the right place.   It’s harder than you might think – and it makes you think! (Shh – that’s the point).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Where to start…..<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I got off to an easy start with those deceptively unimpressive fore-limbs we all know and love from Jurassic Park, but soon came to grief when it came to the ribs. Best leave things to the experts:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The tail bone’s connected to the …..er…..?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Assembling a Tyrannosaur is just like working on your car: there’s always an extra piece left over when you put it back together……<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
A tyrannosaur also guards the gate…<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Great exhibition and well recommended.   Thanks to NHMLA for an enjoyable afternoon.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How when we dig up a dinosaur bone do we know it comes from a young animal or a smaller example of a different species?  That’s a question the Museum of Natural History of Los Angeles collection of T.rex helps answer. Yesterday, Erin and I visited the new Dinosaur Hall, where for the first time … Continue reading Puzzling over Tyrannosaurs at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,8,298,406],"tags":[34,208,55,198,1376,1375],"class_list":["post-13768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-animals","category-museums","category-paleontology","category-science-communication","tag-dinosaur","tag-los-angeles","tag-natural-history","tag-t-rex","tag-thomas","tag-trex"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pkpOr-3A4","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/communicatescience.com\/zoonomian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/communicatescience.com\/zoonomian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/communicatescience.com\/zoonomian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communicatescience.com\/zoonomian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communicatescience.com\/zoonomian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13768"}],"version-history":[{"count":43,"href":"https:\/\/communicatescience.com\/zoonomian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13768\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18453,"href":"https:\/\/communicatescience.com\/zoonomian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13768\/revisions\/18453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/communicatescience.com\/zoonomian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communicatescience.com\/zoonomian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communicatescience.com\/zoonomian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}