Paris’ Museum of Natural History is welcoming a new summer resident: a Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton discovered in the USA in 2013. This is the first time such a skeleton is being presented to the public in France.
Measuring 12.5 metres long and 4 metres high, with a skull diameter of 1.5 metres, meet Trix – a 67-million-year-old T-Rex who’s decided to spend her summer holiday in Paris. The museum’s dedicated exhibition allows visitors little and large to get up close and personal with the bones of the mighty beast.
Diving into the heart of the Cretaceous period
Before you lay eyes on the famous dinosaur, a few explanations are needed. The first part of the exhibition transports visitors to the Cretaceous period during which Trix lived; five sequences teach you about the animal’s natural habitat, as well as revealing the world’s great T-Rex discoveries since 1900.
Among the exhibits you’ll see meteorites, fossils of animals that disappeared during the Cretaceous-Tertiary crisis, fossils of fish, plants, flowers and the skeleton of a hadrosaur (favourite prey of T-Rex) – all from the museum’s collections.
Then comes the long-awaited meeting. The atmospheric lighting cleverly highlights Trix’s crazy proportions. The display lends itself well to visitor photography, with a dedicated selfie spot.
Part 3 of the exhibition focuses on the paleo-biology of T-Rex, with 11 fun interactive modules for children who want to learn more about its age, brain, prey or eggs. At the end of the visit, you can go from theory to practise, visiting an excavation site set up specially for the occasion in the Jardin des Plantes.
Million-year-old specimens
Tickets to the exhibition, which is held in the Jardin des Plantes’ Gallery of Mineralogy and Geology, also grants access to the Gallery of Paleontology and Comparative Anatomy. This flagship of the Museum of Natural History, which celebrates its 120th birthday this year, is home to many million-year-old specimens.
