Winter is fast approaching and we have even had a little snow. It is coming to fast for us but not fast enough if you ski or snowboard. Please stop by the museum on your way to the slopes or on your way back home to see our new exhibits. By the way our new ceratopsian, Ava, is temporarily back on display before going on tour next year. If you did not get a chance to see this remarkable dinosaur when it was here last month, be sure and stop by soon.
Our Christmas tree will be up and awaiting the finishing touches from all of you starting Nov 12th. Come in and make an ornament and put it on our tree.
Thanksgiving break for Woodland Park is November 23rd-27th. It’s a great time to bring friends and family to visit the Dinosaur Resource Center. The RMDRC will be closed on Thanksgiving Day but will be open Friday after Thanksgiving as usual. Dads bring your kids to the RMDRC while mom goes shopping. You can do a little holiday shopping yourself at the Prehistoric Paradise gift store here at the museum. We’ll even gift wrap your purchases for free!
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| NEW DINO MUSEUM: Scattered amongst the sagebrush along the side of Utah’s Highway 191, the dinosaurs are impossible to miss. The life-size sculptures are scientifically grounded representations of the animals that lived around eastern Utah between 235 and 66 million years ago. It is part of an entire Mesozoic menagerie created by the Moab Giants museum and scientific advisor and track expert Martin Lockley. Much of what paleontologists know about dinosaurs have come from their bones. Skeletons show where dinosaurs lived, how they evolved, and how they grew. “Tracks tell us about the dynamic behavior of living animals---walking, running, crouching, limping, traveling in herds”, and more says Lockley. Moab Giants is unique in putting the focus on these tracks through outdoor displays and interactive exhibits inside. “Dinosaur tracks are so much more common than dinosaur bone sites throughout Utah and Colorado”, Lockley says, “and they give important, dynamic information about behavior and ecology.” Moab Giants has 135 full sized dinosaur replicas. Visitors go around the outside walk, starting in the Triassic and working up through the Jurassic into the Cretaceous. Each set of dinosaur models is accompanied by a panel displaying a cast of an original dinosaur footprint found in the area. While some parts of Moab Giants are still under construction, the museum had their soft opening in early September. |
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FYI:
A new species of Alaska duckbill dinosaur has been identified from thousands of bones found on the North Slope and housed at the University of Alaska Museum of the North. Ugrunaaluk kuukpikensis, (pronounced oo-GREW-na-luck KOOK-pik-en-sis), is only the fourth dinosaur species unique to Alaska to be described in scientific literature. The name means “ancient grazer” in Inupiaq. It had hundreds of teeth suitable for eating coarse vegetation in the polar forest 70 million years ago. It was 25-30 ft. long and probably lived north of the Arctic Circle year round enduring months of darkness, snow and low temperatures. The museum has at least 6,000 specimens from these duckbills. The skull is different in shape from Edmontosaurus, another hadrosaur that lived further south. It is likely that Alaska dinosaurs existed in their own environment, separate from others of their kind. All of the species found in Alaska’s far north are not found elsewhere. This concentration of Ugrunaaluk bones is thought to have been created when a flood or other disaster wiped out a herd of young animals all at once. It has provided an abundance of material. “We have multiple elements of every single bone in the body,” says Pat Druckenmiller who is the museum’s earth sciences curator. “It is by far the best known dinosaur yet found in the Arctic.”
Geri Lebold
Education Director |
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| Spend some time shopping at Prehistoric Paradise, the largest dinosaur store in the region for hundreds of unique gifts including real fossils, jewelry, games, books, stuffed dinosaurs, t-shirts and much more! A family membership makes a great gift that can be enjoyed for the entire year. If you have someone who’s difficult to buy for, a gift card is the perfect solution. Save yourself time and money by letting our staff gift wrap your purchases free of charge. |
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Beastly binoculars & flashlight
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DVD - Transformers: Rescue Bots
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Sands Alive: 3D Dino Kingdom
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| 20% OFF gift store purchase! |
| [Ex: Offer for all regular priced items only. Limited to coupon per customer.] |
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| Expires 11/30/2015 |
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20%off
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| Dinosaur Resource Center |
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Triebold Paleontology - In the Lab
The Dinosaur Resource Center’s “Dinosaur Nerds,” led by uber-nerd paleo twerp Jacob Jett, have launched a YouTube channel. Watch for a behind-the-scenes look at what’s going on in the museum and our lab, including fossil reconstruction projects and our visitor experience guides’ hidden gems. Check out all the videos online at dinosaurnerds.com; subscribe to the channel to stay on top of what we’re up to.
Check out lab updates on our blog. Click here! |
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The Dinosaur Resource Center culminated Earth Science Week with a special paleontology program by Steven Veatch. His four hour class provided a practical introduction to Paleontology. Steven and the students explored the lost world where dinosaurs once ruled supreme. We will be having another private class “Introduction to Field Paleontology” on January 30. Class requires a preregistration by calling 719-686-1820X104. Future class details will be available on our website soon.
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Our Halloween program with Denise Gard and her wonder dog Sienna culminated with a costume contest. Our tour guide Stephen Woolf, dressed as our mascot Rolling Thunder, led the visitors in a parade around the museum. Following the costume parade, $25.00 gift cards were awarded for best dinosaur, funniest, prettiest and scariest costumes.
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The Dinosaur Resource Center salutes our country’s active and retired armed forces this Veteran’s Day, Tuesday, November 11th with half price regular admission for military families with appropriate ID.
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Cathy Kelsey will return on Nov. 21st at 1:30pm. A gobble good time is in store for everyone at the DRC for our Thanksgiving puppet workshop. Everyone gets to make their own paper sack Pilgrim puppets and participate in their own puppet show with story teller and puppeteer Cathy Kelsey. So strut on down for this very special Thanksgiving program.
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December will be a busy month for holiday activities in Woodland Park. The Kiwanis Club’s “Breakfast with Santa”on December 5th at the Ute Pass Cultural Center and the DRC’s “Christmas Program” with Mrs. Claus and Santa on December 12th are just a couple of events. Santa and Mrs. Claus will arrive at our museum at 12:30pm for our Winter Wonderland Show which starts at 1:00pm on Dec. 12th. Santa will be back at the museum to visit the kids on Dec. 20, 21, 22 and 23 from 1:00pm-3:00pm. We will end the year with our very fun “Kid’s Free Day” on Monday, Dec. 29th with Nature’s Educators. Look for details of December events on our website, www.rmdrc.com.
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From all of us at the Dinosaur Resource Center, have a safe and abundant Thanksgiving holiday. We look forward to seeing you soon!
JJ Triebold
President
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