- The Field Museum's new Spinosaurus exhibit is longer than its famed T. rex named Sue.
- The exhibit hangs 12 feet above the museum floor and only took 10 hours to assemble.
- This Spinosaurus is the only display of the ancient giant outside of Asia, according to the museum.
Sue the T. rex has been the undisputed queen of prehistoric displays at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. But now, an impressive new exhibit is giving Sue a run for its money.
Meet the Spinosaurus. About 95 million years ago, this thing prowled the waterways of what is now Northern Africa. It's actually the first known swimming dinosaur.
"It was well-adapted to eat fish, and would have spent much of its time in and around rivers," said Ben Miller, exhibitions developer at the Field Museum. "For that reason, we decided to display Spinosaurus in a swimming pose, suspended 12 feet above the floor."
Miller and his team managed to pull that off in under 10 hours. But that's because this dinosaur exhibit has a few key secrets that made it all possible.
The display is a cast from the only existing Spinosaurus fossil
Unlike Sue, the Spinosaurus display doesn't contain any original fossils. Those are housed at Hassan II University in Casablanca, Morocco — the country where the fossil was discovered in 2008.
Because the specimen is a cast, the museum can "mount them in an exciting pose that wouldn't be possible with the delicate originals," Miller said.
To make the cast, the Italian company Prehistoric Minds took 3D laser scans of the original fossils, said Tom Skwerski, exhibitions operations director at the Field Museum.
The company then used those scans to create a foam replica of the Spinosaurus. Each foam piece was finished with fiberglass and paint.
The casts weigh a lot less than the original
Matteo Fabbri, a postdoctoral scientist at the Field Museum who's been studying Spinosaurus since 2008, first suggested getting a cast. Turns out, using a replica makes things a lot easier.
That's because the cast is lighter. At only about 700 pounds, the fully-assembled exhibit weighs about 17 times less than the real thing, which would have weighed a whopping 5-6 tons, Skwerski said.
The specimen has 30 pieces — much fewer than a Spinosaurus fossil
Scientists have analyzed hundreds of Spinosaurus bones in an attempt to piece together how this dinosaur lived. The cast, however, only has 40 pieces: 16 bone sections and 24 ribs.
Skwerski said that's because smaller bones — like the arms — were cast as one larger chunk to make transport and assembly easier.
3 groups of experts helped assemble the display
The Italian team started creating the cast in March, and by May it was ready to ship to Chicago.
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The Spinosaurus arrived in four large crates, escorted by the Italian creators who came along to help assemble the dinosaur.
The Italian team was joined by museum staff and contractors from the Chicago Flyhouse, who specialize in hanging displays.
Altogether, 12 people were involved in the assembly, which went surprisingly quickly.
"It only took about 10 hours over three days to unpack, build, and hang the skeleton," said Skwerski, noting that's because it was so well thought-out and constructed.
On Friday, June 2, the team started assembling the dinosaur at 4 a.m. so it would be ready when visitors arrived. By noon, the Spinosaurus was swimming over Stanley Field Hall, where it will likely be on display for years.
"This is a permanent addition," Skwerski said.
This specimen is based on the only existing Spinosaurus
The Spinosaurus was first discovered in Egypt in 1912. German paleontologist Ernst Freiherr Stromer von Reichenbach discovered the fossil, then brought the partial skeleton to Munich.
Sadly, the fossils were destroyed on April 24, 1944, when the Allies bombed the German city during World War II.
It was nearly a century after the first discovery when a second Spinosaurus was unearthed in Morocco. That specimen was about 50% complete, Miller said, and is what the Field Museum cast is based on.
The cast is the only Spinosaurus on display outside Asia, according to the museum.
