Which is more terrifying: being chased by a snarling bloodthirsty velociraptor or being chased by a snarling bloodthirsty feathery velociraptor?
Keenooshayo Elementary students got to judge for themselves Friday as they and some 500 other kids took in the opening of the Dinosaurs Unearthed exhibit at the Telus World of Science Edmonton. The new exhibit features 17 life-sized animatronic dinosaurs that move, claw and roar, as well as several fossils showing their eventual evolution into birds.
"Dinosaurs are some of the most fun you can have with science," said Telus World of Science CEO Alan Nursall, when asked why they brought in this travelling show.
"They're such an incredible slice of Earth's natural history that they're hard to resist."
Alberta also has some of the richest paleontological sites in the world, giving us a lot of history with dinosaurs, Nursall said.
A big focus of the exhibit is the evolutionary connections between today's birds and yesterday's dinosaurs, as well as new research that suggests many dinosaurs had feathers.
The towering Gigantoraptor near the entrance roars and hisses with a resplendent coat of hairy yellow feathers, for example, resembling a giant, murderous Big Bird.
Researchers now believe that Tyrannosaurus rex had hair-like proto-feathers all over its body for most of its life, noted Frank Florian, science director for the Telus World of Science. The exhibit features a juvenile T. rex depicted in this way.
"It would have been like a big chicken running around back then … a very scary chicken, if you ask me."
Prehistoric science
There's still a lot about dinosaurs that we don't know, Florian said. We're not sure what they sounded like, for example, and we can only guess at their colour.
The exhibit shows how researchers now think that dinosaurs had feathers or feather-like structures for some or all of their lives. Velociraptors had quill knobs on their forelimbs, suggesting they had feathers there, while fossils of the much smaller Microraptor clearly show that it had long tail feathers – feathers that researchers in 2012 determined were likely glossy black in colour.
Florian says the life-sized models really give you a sense of the scale of dinosaurs, while the animatronics make them livelier than the typical museum pieces.
"It's almost like Night at the Museum in a way," he said, referring to the popular film.
It's also a happy coincidence that the exhibit happened to arrive in the same year that the dinosaur-centric film Jurassic World was set to come out, he continued. They had planned to show Jurassic Park in their theatre, but the film's producers vetoed the idea. They have the film Walking with Dinosaurs Prehistoric Planet 3D instead.
St. Lucy School student Daniel Norozov said he's been fascinated by dinosaurs pretty much since birth.
"It's super-fascinating how they look and how they sound."
His favourite was the Tyrannosaurus, as he likes huge monster carnivores. A big feathery one would probably be more intimidating than a big lizard-like one, he added.
Visitors to the exhibit can sweep up fossils from a sand bed and learn about dinosaur sounds, anatomy and digestion. They'll also get to do special activities during the various theme weeks, which include velociraptor safety awareness week, coprolite week, and extinction week.
You can also hold a wedding there for $795. Florian said staff got the idea from the recent Indiana Jones exhibit where they had people asking if they could get married in front of the Ark of the Covenant.
"The bride and groom can be married under the T. rex if they want."
The exhibit runs until Oct. 12. Visit telusworldofscienceedmonton.ca for details.
