Released on November 21, 2013
Parks, Culture and Sport Minister Kevin Doherty revealed today that an exact replica of Saskatchewan’s own Scotty the T. rex is on display in Australia. The Australian Museum in Sydney is about to open its new exhibit entitled Tyrannosaurs: Meet the Family, giving Australian museum-goers their first look at the massive skeleton of the largest member of the tyrannosaur family and an important example of Saskatchewan’s paleontological heritage.
“After 20 years of hard, and at times, painstakingly detailed work by staff at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum, museum visitors both in Saskatchewan and elsewhere have the opportunity to experience a life-sized replica skeleton of Scotty the T. rex ,” Doherty said. “Saskatchewan has a remarkable resource in our fossils. I hope Scotty and other unique examples from our rich fossil history can be shared with museums and their visitors around the globe.”
The skeleton is an exact copy of the one made for the Royal Saskatchewan Museum (RSM) and unveiled this past March at the T.rex Discovery Centre in Eastend, although with a different pose. To watch it being assembled in Australia visit www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJg24Ny9ywg.
“We knew that Scotty was a remarkable specimen, both because of its completeness and its massive size,” Royal Saskatchewan Museum Director Harold Bryant said. “Now an exact replica of Scotty can amaze museum goers in Australia as he does in Eastend and be used to educate students and people there about the age of dinosaurs in North America.”
The exhibition at the Australian Museum is also the first in the world to showcase ancestors of Tyrannosaurus rex. There will be 10 life-size dinosaur specimens on display including Scotty and Guanlong wucaii, a newly discovered feathery relative of T.rex found in China. To learn more about the exhibit and the Australian Museum visit http://australianmuseum.net.au/landing/tyrannosaurs/.
The first pieces of Scotty were discovered in 1991 in the Frenchman River Valley near Eastend. It was the first T. rex skeleton found in Saskatchewan and still one of the most complete ever found in the world. It is approximately six metres tall and more than 12 metres long with a massive skull approaching two metres in length.
The RSM T.rex Discovery Centre, which opened in 2000, was created to showcase the rich palaeontological history around Eastend and southwest Saskatchewan where Scotty and numerous other fossils were found. The RSM paleontology lab and research centre functions year round while the public operation is closed for the season and will resume in May, 2014. Visit www.royalsaskmuseum.ca/ to learn more.
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For more information, contact:
Sean St. George
Parks, Culture and Sport
Regina
Phone: 306-787-9087
Email: sean.st.george@gov.sk.ca
Cell: 306-526-8635