Fossilized Remains of the Connor Museum

The museum exhibit I chose to review is located in the Conner Museum at Washington State University. This exhibit did not have a visible title but focused primarily on a dinosaur named Prosaurulophus maximus; also known as the ‘duck billed‘ dinosaur. The objectives of the exhibit were not entirely clear, but I believed they were centered around providing the public with some basic information about this dinosaur and others in the same family: Hadrosaurus. These dinosaurs lived approximately 75 million years ago during the Cretaceous period and were most likely vegetarians. They probably ate conifers and other swamp grasses judging by their broad and flat teeth, which caused them to wear very quickly. Luckily, these dinosaurs were able to grow their teeth back quickly and almost always had others waiting to replace the damaged or missing ones. These dinosaurs also had rough skin, much like that of a football.

This exhibit was pretty large in retrospect to some of the other exhibits in the museum, and most likely required a substantial amount of work to complete. Unlike most of the other exhibits that consisted of taxidermied animals, this exhibit housed faux fossilized remains that spanned the entire width of the room. The centerpiece of the exhibit was a painted plaster cast of an actually fossilized ‘duck billed’ dinosaur. It was as long as the room was wide and as tall as the ceiling was high. With dimensions like this, is was not housed in an actual glass case like many of the other exhibits. It was instead left out in the open for patrons to witness, almost unshrouded completely. The only material suggesting museumgoers not to touch, were some very short wooden poles; loosely tied together with rope. There was also some archeological tools scattered around the base of the plaster-dino to simulate an actual dig. These tools consisted of a small pic hammer, handheld broom, and some other odds and ins. Finally there was a small poster, and an even smaller sheet of paper on stands for patrons to read from. The poster contained all of the data regarding the exhibit, along with an actually picture of a fossilized skin sample from one of these creatures, as well as a computer generated image of what the dinosaur might have looked like in its heyday. And the small piece of paper was just s written thank you to all those that helped create the exhibit.

The exhibit was initially very appealing to me and is one of those setups that catches your eye from the beginning and reels you in. The sheer size of the exhibit quite literally could not be contained by the traditional practices of the Connor Museum, but for some reason it just worked. The openness of the exhibit gives you the feeling of being on a dig and provides just as much of the ’wow’ factor as if it were an actual fossil. The plaster provides great detail of what the real skeleton would have looked like, even showing the broken ribs that the animal had at the time of it’s fossilization. However, when you look at the rest of the exhibit in detail, it is actually kind of disappointing. For one there is no title to give a quick description or let you know what the exhibit is about. There is some information displayed on a poster mounted to a stand, but really some more information about the dinosaur would have been great. I can think of a few things off the top of my head: where it was originally excavated, who excavated it/ discovered it, what type of material it was fossilized in, or really anything else that tells the story or helps paint a mental picture of the dinosaur or its discovery. Some of the information contained on the poster is actually kind of hard to follow and slightly confusing. The poster stated that the skin of this dinosaur is like that of a football or a baseball. In my mind, theses are two completely different textures. A baseball has a feel of soft smooth leather, and the football of a harder more bumpy and textured material.

I really did like this exhibit and I have always been fascinated by dinosaurs, or any other creature that is extinct for that matter. I like how the display was setup and felt that it really conveyed the feelings of an archeological dig. There were very few things I would have changed, and really I would not have changed the exhibit at all, but rather just enhance it. I actually wish that there were more exhibits of ancient or extinct creatures in the Connor Museum and displays containing animals which one can see out on a Sunday drive.