Behind the scenes at Drumheller's dino museum!

This past month I have been mixing up field work with time at the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology in Drumheller. While the public side of the museum is pretty amazing, I think the part that the public doesn't see is even cooler! Check out the catacombs with me!

Alberta is famous for their plethora of Ceratopsian species (i.e. the Triceratops family)... they line the shelves in the prepared specimen room!

They also have some amazing stromatolites!

Here's a beautiful Plesiosaur discovered by Dr. Betsy Nichols.

A stunning ichthyosaur skeleton from the Posidonia shale of Germany. The outline of this one is made through polishing the rock (i.e. it is not real) but several Posidonia ichthyosaurs have real skin outlines! That's how we know that they had a shark-like tail (the vertebrae only goes into the bottom part of the tail).

Lambeosaurus!

Here's Selva, my MSc student, standing with a huge replica of a jaw bone (sorry I don't remember what species)

OM NOM NOM!

These trilobites died happy! ;) Check out those eyes!

Check out these amazing Green River fossil fish and a palm frond! The Green River Formation is one of the most iconic lacustrine Lagerstätte deposit (a Lagerstätte is an exceptional fossil deposit that preserves features such as soft tissues, guts, skin, and feathers that are almost never preserved in the fossil record.

An wee little plastic ankylosaurus on an oil sands ankylosaurus fossil!

The Skull!

An wee little plastic Mosasaur with a mosasaur skull found in the ammolite mine!!

Check out the puncture on the jaw! That's a tooth from another mosasaur that bit this guy. Based on the bone, this wound had already started to fester when the mosasaur died!

*Box contains dinosaurs*

Look at these amazing pike fish!

In the museum you can look at the scientists preparing the specimens.... behind the veil you can look out at the people!

Plastic pleisiosaur on a plesiosaur ribcage!