REASON 16 TO VISIT #ULTIMATEDINOS: CARCHARODONTOSAURUS!
A STORY
I’ll always remember that day I was walking back from payroll through Curatorial and I bumped into David Evans. We had a 4 second exchange about how exciting it was that Ultimate Dinosaurs: Giants of Gondwana had finally started its construction phase, and then he said, “Hey, why don’t we take a quick walk down stairs.”. I was the envy of all my friends for days.
It was very much a scene from Jurassic Park. I guess. Sort of. Like after the Park was destroyed in the first movie. There was construction all over the gallery. The lights were low, and loud buzzes coming from the installation crew. But most impressive were the dinosaur skeletons. Every where.
- A Tyrannosaurus skull here.
- An Ouranosaurus spine there.
- The legs of an Austroraptor sprawled across the floor.
And in the corner, all hidden and tucked away, was the upper half of a Carcharodontosaurus skull. Carcharodontosaurus was always a dream dinosaur for me. Like I explained in my Amargasaurus piece, this was a dinosaurs I never thought I’d see in real life.
Then the greatest words I ever heard were spoken by David Evans, “Hey, you wanna take a photo?”.
“Yes. Yes. A thousand times yes.” I said, in my head. I said, “hajslhadlfha… sure.” in real life.
Now I should mention at this point that my wife reads this, so I will qualify that my above statement is only the third best thing I’ve ever heard. Of course number 1 being “yes, I’ll go out with you” and 2 being when she said “yes” at the altar.
JUST SOME NOTES
- The skull is huge. I’m not sure if you can get an idea how big it is from the photo where I’m standing with it. Google “Paul Sereno Carcharodontosaurus” and that should clear it up.
- Like all big theropods there is debate on who was the biggest. Obviously Carcharodontosaurus is in this debate too. But of what there is certainty, Carcharodontosaurus had big teeth. Big, long and serrated. I’ll pick up a tooth and just want to cut a steak.
- The name stands for “jagged tooth lizard” and is named after the shark Carcharodon, with similarly large teeth.
- Brian Switek wrote a piece about this giant here: “Keeping up with Carcharodontosaurus”.
- Another good article here, “Carcharodontosaurus — a Bloody Tooth-Taxon” from Jaime A. Headden.
- And finally, “Massive New Meat-Eating Dino Had "Steak Knife” Teeth“ from James Owen.
Make sure to check out the rest of our 28 Reasons to Visit #ultimatedinos! The greatest dinosaur exhibit ever shown (at least in my personal opinion) closes March 17th. More info here!
Have you visited? What’s your favourite part of #ultimatedinos?
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