Come July, the Australian Museum will be host to the largest Chinese Dinosaur exhibition to ever visit our country.
Twelve complete skeletons of dinosaurs will command the ground floor, most of which comprising at least 65 per cent real fossilised bone. Among these are the enormous Mamenchisaurus, a 23 m long sauropod, and the unicorn-like crested Tsintaosuarus. Add to this the infamous predator Velociraptor (which is actually from Mongolia, but it's pretty close), towering flesh-eating allosaurs, one of the world's oldest stegosaurs and a child-sized, parrot-beaked dinosaur. As well as dinosaurs, the exhibition will feature dinosaur eggs, claws, teeth, spines, tail clubs, plants, large plesiosaurs, tiny nothosaurs, turtles and other marine reptiles.
For the first time in Australia, four remarkably preserved fossils of small feathered dinosaurs and some of the world's oldest birds will be on display - with spectacular interpretative models demonstrating the evolutionary transition from dinosaur to bird. For decades scientists had debated this evolutionary theory but, until the discovery of the Chinese 'dragon birds' no dinosaur had yet been found with the most bird-like feature of all - feathers. See how these creatures fit into our new understanding of ornithological evolution with terrifyingly life-like, full-sized, feathered versions on display to accompany the amazing fossilised skeletons, claws and even their last meals.
As early as 265 AD (1737 years ago), the people of China were recording the discovery of 'dragon bones' - pre-historic remnants of the time when giant reptiles (we now know as dinosaurs) ruled the earth. China has an abundance of rocks of the right type and age to preserve dinosaur bones (Late Triassic to Late Cretaceous sediments). Some of the best of these dinosaur-rich deposits have been exposed and excavated throughout the last 100 years. Chinese dinosaurs are renowned for being spectacular, abundant, diverse and well preserved.
In 1999, some of the very best dinosaur material from mainland China was gathered together by the Guangdong Southern Natural Museum from museums across mainland China and displayed at the Hong Kong Science Museum. At that time, negotiations began with the Australian Museum to bring these prehistoric giants here, most of them for the very first time. In April 2000, former director Mike Archer led a small group to China to continue discussions and visit some of the fossil sites and quarries that have revealed the specimens. These included the famous Danshanpu Dinosaur Quarry in Sichuan province (around which the Zigong Dinosaur Museum was built) and an expedition to quarries in the north-eastern province of Liaoning which have produced the world's first feathered dinosaurs as well as thousands of exquisitely preserved fish, frogs, lizards, insects, shrimp, plants, primitive birds and mammals. The material in the exhibit is representative of genera and sometimes families of dinosaurs unique to China (though there are some related to Australian dinosaurs) and specimens come from across the entire country.
Back at home, the special interpretative models of the Chinese feathered dinosaurs commissioned by the Australian Museum are painstakingly sculpted and feathered. A project team covers all the challenges (development, design, logistics, preparing activities and lectures) of bringing an exhibition of this size to its full glory. After being shipped across the ocean to Australia in four sea containers, seven technicians from China will spend a month at the Museum re-assembling the skeletons.
All in all Chinese Dinosaurs is a contemporary blockbuster, featuring the exotic combination of the Far East, spectacular ancient dinosaurs and dragon birds. An extraordinary experience that opens 6 July!
Sarah Timmins
An Australian Museum Website
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