Meanwhile, scale models of the fossils were sent to the Peabody so the museum’s paleontologists could manipulate and correct the poses so they more accurately reflect what the creatures looked like according to modern science.

For example, Brontosaurus’ head will tilt like a bird, staring at visitors as they enter the Great Hall when the museum reopens in 2024.

But first, RCI’s fossil restoration and conservation experts “remove the plaster and paint that hid much of the bone, but also the old armature, the metal framework used to create the pose for the mount. “Vanessa said. Rhue, Head of Vertebrate Palaeontology Collections at Peabody.

“Then they can actually stabilize each individual bone, because fossils by their nature aren’t always very stable,” Rhue said. “And when they’re big and heavy, under their own weight, they can take damage over time.”

“An individual vertebra of this animal would be about as large as this table,” said Advait Jukar, affiliate curator of vertebrate paleontology at Peabody.

Brontosaurus one-twelfth the size

When all the bones were ready, a one-twelfth scale model of Brontosaurus was created using light-scanning technology, such as an Artec Space Spider, and 3D printing.

The Space Spider “uses light to capture the three dimensional image and from there you can generate an OBJ file and 3D print something in real time, and you can also adjust the size you print it at , so you can shrink something or scale something,” Rhue said.

Just like a JPG file contains a photo, an OBJ file is a 3D image format that can be read by 3D image editing software.

Now Peabody paleontologists are moving and rotating the model’s bones to make it look like the dinosaur.

“First of all, the tail is off the ground,” said Susan Butts, senior collections manager in vertebrate paleontology. “We are going to add a lot of vertebrae to the tail. We made a lot of very small adjustments, like the toe splay.

The toes “were closer together, so they’re a little more splayed out, but they’re also more forward-facing,” said Vanessa Rhue, collections manager in vertebrate paleontology.

The tail will actually be about three times as long, with 72 vertebrae, called caudals, Jukar said. Now it only has 12. In the model, a thread indicates how long the tail will be longer, flying behind, as if Brontosaurus were running. The dinosaur will be about 75 feet long, Rhue said.

The new pose “is based on other known specimens that have been collected,” Rhue said. “So when you have the opportunity to go back, it allows you to revisit the pose in light of new research, in light of new specimens that have since been found, and to revise your interpretation of how it would have mechanically able to move his body.” Rhue said more vertebrae would also be added to the Brontosaurus’ neck.

Visitors will see the look of a dinosaur

Rhue said chief curator Jacques Gauthier decided “to place the head in such a position that it does not look like a mammal but reflects the posture of a bird, which is a little inquisitive, with its eye turned the visitor. As new guests enter the room, they will first be greeted by the Brontosaurus.

“They will be watched,” Butts said. This makes sense because birds are considered direct descendants of dinosaurs.

As they decide what different parts of the skeleton look like, such as the joint or the curvature of the tail, “you have to look at different features of the vertebrae to see that they can actually move together properly. “, Butts said.

“The benefit of printing a model of this size at this particular scale gives you the opportunity to see how minor adjustments, although they may seem small, actually reflect quite a significant change in the overall posture of the mount. , which has ramifications for how she can fit in a space,” Rhue said. A decision to have her tail whipped “has ramifications for the rest of the skeleton” and may not be desirable for posing in her together, she said.

Before the models were assembled, meetings were held to discuss what the Peabody staff wanted. “So we’re already starting from a place of informed change,” Butts said. “And building on top of that to kind of give it character and make it look realistic and make it not look like a static skeleton in a room and look like there’s a dinosaur in the room with you. Give it new life.

Archelon and Tylosaurus

Two other skeletons are not dinosaurs but will be very visible in the new central gallery. One is Archelon, the giant sea turtle with the missing right hind leg. He will be chased through the air by Tylosaurus, a predatory marine reptile, one of whose relatives may have bitten Archelon’s fin.

While Archelon has been in the Great Hall since it was built nearly 100 years ago, it will pose with its front flippers up, “sort of hovering,” Butts said.

By studying how Archelon’s leg healed, a field known as paleopathology, “we can then deduce that the injury was not the cause of death, but that the organism was able to live with it for a some time,” Rhue said.

“And so in this pose, we’re trying to reconstruct a very plausible moment in time when this particular specimen was escaping predation,” she said.

Tylosaurus, a large mosasaur, is “related to pythons and monitor lizards,” Jukar said. “And pythons have this extra set of jaws on their upper palate, which helps them pull their prey into their mouths as they feed.” The Tylosaurus too.

“These are from what’s called the Western Interior Seaway,” Butts said. “And it’s this shallow waterway that covered the Great Plains about 100 to 65 million years ago,” the end of the Cretaceous, when the dinosaurs started dying off. “So everything went from Canada to Mexico,” she said.

Unlike Archelon, “The Tylosaur is a new acquisition for the Peabody, which means it’s a new specimen added to our collections that we’re exhibiting for the first time,” Rhue said. It was purchased from Triebold Paleontology in Colorado. Most of the exhibits, however, come from Peabody’s collections.

“One of the things you might notice about Tylosaurus is that there’s a bend in the tail,” Jukar said. The curvature is caused by a vertical tail stroke, he said. Whales, on the other hand, have two horizontal forked flukes at the end of their tail.

Meetings and photos

All decisions on how each mount will be posed were made after hours of discussion, preserved on film. Once the final settings are complete, the scans will be sent back to RCI.

“We were spending an hour and a half putting down the Brontosaurus,” Butts said. “And then Vanessa was taking 1,000 pictures of them from all angles, because they don’t stay very stable. They are designed to be molded and moved around in small pieces. So she fully documented the exact position that we agreed on, after all that discussion.

It’s important to get it right, said Christopher Renton, a Peabody spokesman, because the Brontosaurus could remain unchanged for 90 years, just as it did when it was first installed. This is especially important for Brontosaurus and Archelon, which are holotypes.

“The holotype is the named specimen that is used to describe a new species in science, and it becomes the standard of comparison for any newly discovered material,” Rhue said. “And this opportunity prepares us to reflect on other specimens that have been collected since this was originally described.”

Brontosaurus was first described in 1879 after it was discovered in Como Bluffs, Wyo. In 2003, after a century of paleontological arguments, it was decided that it was in fact an Apatasaurus. Finally, in 2015, its original name was restored. “The Brontosaurus is back!” exclaimed Gauthier at the time.

The dinosaur also had two heads, since it was found without a head. The original and imposing cast head was displayed in the Great Hall after the installation of a more angular head, based on new findings.

‘The’ Brontosaurus

“It’s important that we get it right when it’s the first in the world like this,” Renton said. “It’s ‘the’ Brontosaurus, so we want to make sure that when people see it, it’s positioned correctly.”

Ultimately, Rhue said, “The purpose of our collections is research. And exhibits are really another storage place from a collections perspective. The search will continue for the things that are on display.

Speaking of storage, what will be on display at the Peabody is a tiny fraction of the museum’s 14 million items, Butts said.

The 3D scans will also be invaluable for research because “sometimes when objects are exposed, it can obscure the viewer’s view of key morphological or surface features, anatomical features,” Rhue said. “The shape of bones is important for paleontologists. It is something that we can quantify, measure, compare and contrast.

The disassembly of the skeletons – disarticulated – “allows increased accessibility to specimens for research and to scientists around the world who may not have to physically travel here in order to be able to study the specimen and include it in their research”, she said.

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