Dinosaurs of Antarctica exhibition

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Dinosaurs have never been cooler

Dinosaurs of Antarctica exhibition and OMNIMAX® film open at Cincinnati Museum Center Oct. 14

CINCINNATI –Dinosaurs have always been cool, but they’ve never been this cool. Cincinnati Museum Center’s newest exhibition and OMNIMAX® film reveal the prehistoric history of Antarctica and its dinosaur inhabitants in exciting detail. The unique offering from CMC delivers a content-rich immersive exhibition and a perfectly matched OMNIMAX® film that transport you to Antarctica in the age of dinosaurs.  Dinosaurs of Antarctica opens October 14.

Dinosaurs of Antarctica take you back in time to a land we wouldn’t recognize today. A land where massive beasts thundered across the land; where colossal amphibians lurked about thick swamps; where sleek predators prowled the shallow tropical seas; where lush ferns and verdant woodland covered the land. This is prehistoric Antarctica 200 million years ago – a warm, green landscape teeming with activity as it sat much farther north as part of the supercontinent Gondwana (along with parts or all of South America, Africa, Australia, the Indian subcontinent and Arabia).

“It’s rare that an exhibition and OMNIMAX® film pair together so perfectly, creating experiences that build on and enrich each other,” said Dave Duszynski, vice president of featured experiences at Cincinnati Museum Center. “Together, they have the power to immerse you in the prehistoric Antarctic environment and to bring it to life in dazzling detail.”

Dinosaurs of Antarctica: The Exhibit showcases real fossils as well as lifelike sculptures of dinosaurs in an immersive environment that shows the world they lived in. The 25-foot-long Cryolophosaurus, with its uniquely crested head, stands against a dark sky streaked with the shimmering light of the aurora australis – the southern counterpart to the Northern Lights. The fierce predator’s skeleton is also on display in the exhibition. A rhino-sized Glacialisaurus, likely the Cryolophosaurus’s prey, stands near two other species that have not yet been officially scientifically described. These dinosaurs are early relatives of the giant long-necked, four-legged herbivores like Brachiosaurus but are smaller. A juvenile specimen is just about the size of a Labrador Retriever, plenty small enough to be devoured by the 19- to 39-foot Taniwhasaurus prowling the oceans.

The exhibition isn’t just about what scientists have found in Antarctica, but how. Artifacts from historical and modern expeditions, including the sledge used by legendary Antarctic explorer Robert Falcon Scott’s 1910 Terra Nova expedition and the thick red parkas worn by Field Museum scientists exploring the continent today, are included. Pickaxes used by early explorers, along with jackhammers that help modern paleontologists excavate prehistoric rock much easier, show some of the tools needed for a polar expedition. And while much of the technology has improved for Antarctic exploration (helicopters over dogs, for example), researchers still sleep in tents similar to those used by Scott on his early 20th century expeditions.