Random Palaeo-Work idea of the Day #12

For this week's RP-WIDOTD, I'd like to credit museum employee and writer for the blog Extinct Monsters Ben H. Miller, whose series of Framing Fossil Exhibits and the nature of early fossil exhibits and the popular stereotypes being parades of big skeleton mounts was the inspiration for this idea, conceived at 2 AM in the morning.

Towering Titans

This would be a museum exhibit homaging the idea of mount after mount of giant prehistoric creatures, only here having a more nuanced take on such, focusing on just how these big creatures could evolve in the first place, wheher its interal factors, like dense bones or airsacs to lighten the body, or external factors, like suitable climates and vegetation.

The vast majority of the exhibit would be a central platform, with additional ones around the perimitre of the exhibit hall.

The first creatures museum-goers would see even before entering from whatever main hall of the museum is are a pair of Edmontosaurus, among the biggest of the bird-footed dinosaurs; its a reference to some of the earliest dinosaur skeleton mounts from the late 1800's, which included both Hadrosaurus and Iguanodon, depicted standing upright to an imposing effect. In a nod to this, one would also be posed on two legs, if standing horizontally rather then Godzilla-like rather then the old ones.

Going down the left side of the central display takes you past terrestrial mesozoic life with a focus on archosaurs. Naturally, first is T. rex. Next to it is a fossil tree trunk posed upright, with the signage being about how many dinosaurs grew big thanks to plants during the Mesozoic. Next to that is a Camarasaurus, naturally the biggest animal of the exhibit. The displays focuses on how sauropods had honeycomb bones and airsacs to help lighten themselves, as well as the pressure faced by allosauroids other other predators helped keep making them bigger and bigger in an evolutionary arms race.

Past the Camara would be a cast of a Quetzalcoatlus, rearing up and wings outstretched, representing the pterosaurs for the exhibit. Similarly representing a specific branch of dinosaurs is the extinct Vorombe or Elephant bird, which has displays on island gigantism.

Meanwhile, the right side of the exhibit is about cenozoic mammals. First off is a proboscidean, perhaps a columbian mammoth or a mastodon. Either way, its also visible from the entrance.

Not far behind are are pair of fellow ice age giants (heh), a Ground sloth (ideally Eremotherium) and the Short-faced Bear, Arctodus. While both are usually quadrupeds, both will be posed standing up on their hind legs, as if in a fight.

However, it is likely both will be dwarfed, and perhaps all the others save the Camara, with a cast of the giant rhino relative Paceratherium, one of the largest land mammals to walk earth. It goes without saying that my idea is in North America outside of the AMNH there aren't really much of those on the continent, so this would be quite the specimen on display.

The exhibit will be rounded out by models of an African Bush Elephant and a Giraffe, the largest land animals alive today, with displays on the threats they face thanks to us and how large size can doom a species, especially during extinction events.

A walkway at the end (hastily represented in grey in the picture) provides additional views of the titanic specimens.

While not portrayed here, the perimeter of the exhibit and even the ceiling along the walls will have additional specimens, such as Megalodon jaws and an orthocone specimen, which while aquatic, are certainly huge and have parts that tower over visitors, and are posed in ways that emphasise such. Really, the exhibit is designed with looking up and craning necks in mind.

Hope you like the exhibit concept! Let me know if there should be anything improved or changed in  your opinion!