Fossil Gallery at the Canadian Museum of Nature / Musée canadien de la nature: A Review and virtual tour

Hello, and we're back to Mesozoic Mind! For a weekend vacation to Ottawa, I visited the Canadian Museum of Nature, a museum that serves as one of the national museums of Canada. It was pretty good, if fairly smaller then I expected and able to be seen in under two hours. Naturally, I capped off the visit with the museum's fossil gallery, where the vast majority of them are.

(And you can too, with a museum's Matterport virtual tour they provide for free!)

I admit my own experience was hampered by my own excitement and dealing with others, and I kind of rushed it. I'll still try to do my best here.

The Fossil Gallery starts off with horizontal one hall that' fairly open but has a lengthwise dividing wall in the centre, while next is s vertical hall divided into both a walkthrough diorama and a section for cenozoic life. This is where things get interesting: the majority of it is on a raised platform accessible by stairs, overlooking the other half.

The first gallery, specifically the mesozoic section, is generally organised by taxonomy, declared by large signs on the wall. The first room is for mesozoic life, or rather Campanian to Maastrichtian dinosaurs. It may seem limited in scope, but that's where most of Canada's dinosaurs are found, so it works out. In a clockwise direction from an entrance, it goes Ceratopsians, Ankylosaurs, Marine Life, Freshwater, Hadrosaurs, then Theropods. However, the first thing literally just a few centimetres from the entrance is a Daspletosaurus. I believe its the holotype, so that already adds to its imposing nature. In fact, many of the dinosaur skeletons on display here are THE holotypes. While they were collected by Americans (specifically the Sternberg clan), it makes sense given its the museum is all about the Great North.

Next comes the ceratopsid section, starting with a section for the relatively new (2016) Spiclypeus. It as a whole features mounts of such taxa like Chasmosaurus, Styracosaurus, Anchiceratops, Leptoceratops, and of course Triceratops. Some are full mounts, some are just a few skulls, and a few are wall-relief. Overall, a pretty good start to the gallery, and there's something about it I feel is the best part of it.

At the back of the hall is for aquatic life, both of the Niobrara sea and freshwater. Naturally as you can see, it has your usual free-hanging marine reptiles, not a bad thing by any means - if anything its the most suitable for them, as it conveys floating and swimming well.

Oh, and there's a section for fragments of Ankylosaurs between the two. Moving on, since I didn't bother taking a photo of them on my visit, so settle for a screengrab from the website.

After that is the iconic forest diorama the museum has, where a parent and child Daspletosaurus are confronting a herd of Chasmosaurus, as some troodonts look on (they're not quite the right feathers, though). The models are nice and detailed, although the feathers on the troodonts aren't quite right (they should look more like bird's feathers). Also, people kept putting their hands in the mouth, even though I'm sure that's illegal.

The next comes the Cenozoic section of the gallery, and its smaller then the mesozoic, consisting of a roundabout, mounted cast skeletons of early whales (which I swear were also featured in several exhibits at the Royal Ontario Museum), and the majority up a flight of stairs on a space overlooking the diorama. However, the latter was closed on my visit. You can see it in the matterport above (I findf it good, especially the Megacerops diorama), but you'll have to settle for the first photo below.

There's also a section where you enter a room that simulates the K-Pg extinction, but it wasn't open on my visit. wasn't interested in it anyway.

Going back into the Mesozoic hall, the final sections are for ornithopods and theropods. Its dominated by both Corythosaurus, a wall-mounted Edmontosaurus, and the theropod Carnotaurus, who we all know is from Canada./sarcasm

By any means, I like both sections just fine.

How else do you conclude a dinosaur gallery with their links to birds? The final exhibit features coelurosaurs as its focus, with both a Dromaeosaurus and Ornithomimid on display and a model of what I think is a pretty good Microraptor as well as a few casts of your usual Chinese paraves.

The positions of the skeletons (at least the full ones) feature are all your standard standing or looking around poses, or wall-relief mounts in death poses. However, there are some exceptions: most notably the Corythosaurus is bending down as if it were in reverence of the Carnotaurus next to it.

Now for the wall-relief mounts throughout the exhibits. I admit I am not the biggest fan of the style, even if it saves on space as it does with the Edmonto and the Leptoceratops, I do feel the majority of wall-relief mounts to be pretty bland, as they are always in death poses, which only serve to reiterate the stereotype of dinosaurs as big dead lizards who only exist as bones, not once-living creatures like most skeletal mounts suggest.

One notable thing that differs is in interactives, in that their are plenty more then say, the ROM. You do have standard computer terminals which have games about dinosaur science I'm sure readers are very familiar with, as well as playing clips from the Trilogy of Life. But you also have things like the aforementioned extinction simulator and an instrument that simulates how Parasaurolophus sounds. It's a bit annoying to have to hear over and over, but a cool inclusion nevertheless. it does help make it more memorable if not engaging 

The more conventional interpretives for the dinosaurs generally consist of basic information, labels of the specimen, and palaeoart, with coloured strips on whte backgrounds. They're nice, although some of the art shows its age at times, like nekkid Ornithomimus to name one example.

And no I didn't take photos of them nor do I know the artist. Sorry, didn't have time to.

The best word I can describe the Fossil gallery as compact. Compared to the Royal Ontario Museum's space, it is way smaller a footprint and feels like it. Most if not all the species are generally from western Canada and the US and rarely strays from it. That's pretty good, as it maintains a kind of continuity between it and helps focus the theme.

Finally,, most cenozoic mammal-oriented exhibits tend to focus more on the Ice Age and mammoths, so to do palaeogene fauna for the mammal part of the Fossil Gallery does is quite the notable choice, and one that make sense since there are a lot more from the latter then the former, such as Saskatchewan to name one locale (don't believe me? Just enter Mammalia and Paleogene in PBDB compared to Pleistocene). The diorama of the horse relative Megacerops seems to be a particular highlight.

Honestly, I feel like the Fossil Gallery is good enough as it is, with not much I'd change to it besides the mandatory updating of info and interpretives (and making the younger Dapletosaurus thinner as baby tyrannosaurs are). I'd remove a few species from it (most notably the out-of-place Carnotaurus). If the museum were even a bit larger, I would also devote sections for other era, most notably the Palaeozoic era and the Pleistocene.

Alternatively (and one that isn't as fantasy-based), I'd get rid of the extinction theatre bit and put of the the cenozoic fossils in its place (while also strengthening the floor to accommodate such). Seems pretty useless to include when just a few signs could do.

Overall, the Fossil Gallery is a very good gallery with a decent variety of species and some good exhibitry and does a good job of highlighting the country's iconic dinosaurs, and even if I didn't see it, introduces the mammals of a time not always well-represented. Although I don't consider it a required must-see for most palaeo-lovers outside of Canadians and wouldn't go back to it again and again, the Canadian Museum of Nature's fossil gallery is good to visit.

• Exhibit Design - 8/10
• Species Variety - 8/10
• Interpretives - 8/10
• Information - 8/10
• Aging - 7/10