Recent museum visits

[jooooo]

I recently visited 2 museums, Naturalis in Leiden where I got to see Trix and the Oertijdmuseum in Boxtel. Here are my thoughts on both. Spoiler alert

Trix exhibit:
For those who don't know yet, the Netherlands got a T. rex specimen this year, nicknamed ''Trix'' after the previous Dutch queen, Trix is a very large and complete specimen, lacking only her dentary, arms, feet and some vertebrae and being around 12.5m long. Around september/oktober I went to Leiden and gave Trix a visit in Naturalis with some friends of mine.

The exhibit starts with some animatronic dinosaurs, a pair of Deinonychus, a Tenontosaurus, a generic dromeaosaur, a Maiasaura, an Ankylosaurus, a Triceratops carcass and a pair of Tyrannosaurus. The Tyrannosaurs are defenitely the best of these, only being somewhat shrinkwrapped, lacking feathers and one having pronated hands. The other dinosaurs are kind of ''meh'' except for the dromaeosaurs, the Deinonychus is just generic, scaly animal attacking Tenontosaurus and the other dromaeosaurs are exactly the same aside from being covered in a weird carpet of protofeathers that is not aestetically pleasing in the least.

The specimen is housed in the second room, this is by far the best part of the exhibit and you can examine the specimen from all angles, with no others things to distract you aside from some information boards. I'm personally a bit annoyed by the pose, the specimen is running with its head only a couple dozen centimeters off the ground, this is almost surely because they wanted it so you could get the best possible view of the skull but it looks like Trix is faceplanting any second. Other than this the room is pure Tyrannosaurian gold for paleofans.

The few rooms after Trix were generally filled with things to do for kids which is not going to be very interesting to most of you, little interactive games etc. However there was a part where a trio of interns was preparing fossils and you could ask questions and I spent a decent amount of time asking them things, mostly about the bonebed of Triceratops Naturalis was uncovering in the US and a few questions about Trix.

The paleoart hung throughout the museum differed vastly in quality, you had the mediocre Trix press release art and dromaeosaur animatronics to pretty decent things like the T. rex animatronics. Most paleoart there was shrinkwrapped and underfeathered (for the animals that needed it ). The gift shop wasn't all that interesting, mostly generic kids dinosaur stuff with some PAPO models and a few books, bought a book on the specimen that was available.

Deinonychus animatronics:
Maiasaura and generic dromaeosaur animatronics:
T. rex and Ankylosaurus animatronics:
Animatronic T. rex 2 and Triceratops carcass:
Best photo I took of Trix:


And now for the Oertijdmuseum:
This museum starts immediately, in the front hall, where you can gaze upon Casper, the sperm whale, a set of fossils found in the Netherlands and a series murals showing what is known from the Netherlands during the Carboniferous, Triassic, Cretaceous, Miocene, Pliocene and Pleistocene. Then as you enter the rest of the museum you walk up a slope with a display case showing a series of taxidermy marine life to look at, then as you enter the second floor you see a series of fossils owned by the museum, some miocene whale bones, ammonites, sea stars, a Deinosuchus skull labelled as nile crocodile (might want to fix that) and a cast of a famous Ichtyosaurus fossil.

If you turn around the corner there you will find a series of animatronic dinosaurs and dinosaur models leading you across a bridge full of smaller dinosaur claws, eggs etc. into the big hall of the museum, with all of the dinosaur mounts. This hall is rather crowded and I'm imagining that it won't be too long before extra space is needed but there is plenty to see here, a cast of Stan the Tyrannosaurus, a Stegosaurus, a Triceratops skull and if you walk up a few stairs you can see the pterosaurs, marine reptiles hanging from the ceiling as well as look a Brachiosaurus in the eye. These skeletons are accompanied by information panels and a reconstruction.

After you are finished looking at the mounts you can go though the dining area to the outside, where a series of lifesized statues await you. Starting with some paleozoic critters like Dimetrodon, Meganeura and Arthropleura as you go around the building and you leave the paleozoic and come into the Mesozoic, this part also houses a playground for the most part is a series of life-sized statues of prehistoric animals with an information board and a 2-dimensional reconstruction. The final part of the museum is the Dinosaur Forest. A patch of forest with a similar setup to the garden around the museum building, you walk alongside a series of life-sized statues of prehistoric animals arranged roughly in chronological order, although this time a different set of creatures and models is featured.

Now for the paleoart of this museum, as with the Trix exhibit the quality of the paleoart varies a lot, you have some really good models but some absolutely terrible ones, the best pieces in the museum in my opinion was a small prosauropod hiding behind a Variaraptor and Herrerasaurus and this feathered Dilophosaurus model that was in the beginning of the Dinosaur Forest. The worst ones are probably the animatronic Ornitholestes, a long series of Jurassic Park raptors standing in for actual dromaeosaurs and the Styracosaurus from the Dinosaur Forest. I expect this difference in quality is due to the fact that hiring a paleoartist to do all the reconstructions they would want to do would be rather expensive and they ended up finding cheaper alternatives. The result is a mixed bag of reconstructions ranging from really good to really bad.

As for pictures, I took a few of some of the better models as I didn't imagine I was going to be writing a review of the museum here
Fragmentary hadrosaur femur, one of the very rare dinosaur fossils form the Netherlands
Rhynchosauroides, a series of triassic footprints from the Netherlands
The feathered Dilophosaurus I talked about earlier, a nice model.
Statue of a small ornithischian :
Labelled as bigfoot, regardless of your opinion on it's existance, it's probably better not to put this in a museum, although admittedly the information next to it did point out it wasn't a factually existing animal :

Bit of a long post but I hope it was worth the read

[Jose S.M.]

Thanks for sharing! That Dilophosaurus statue looks really good, the little ornithopod is cute too.

[Tyto_Theropod]

Very good review. I agree in the Dilophosaurus, it's a lovely statue. The ornithopod is nice too, but the foot that is on the rock looks very strange, almost plantigrade. Anyway, thanks for the pictures.

BTW, can someone please tell Bigfoot to stop mooning the visitors?

[Derek.McManus]

Interesting review and pictures thank you for sharing!

[jooooo]

Thank you everyone!

I forgot to talk about the gift shop from the Oertijdmuseum, it's more extensive then the one at the Trix exhibit. There's no PAPO models but aside from the general things for kids there is a range of books to choose from, fossils, a range of oddities and toys. The fossils are mostly small things like titanosaur eggshells, theropod teeth, sea urchins and the sort. The oddities include taxidermy insects, small vertebrates in jars and modern animal skeletons. As for the toys, there is a range of CollectA, from the older models like their original T. rexes and some newer ones like the Mosasaurus, Diabloceratops and Quetzalcoatlus.

[Tyto_Theropod]

Thank you everyone!

I forgot to talk about the gift shop from the Oertijdmuseum, it's more extensive then the one at the Trix exhibit. There's no PAPO models but aside from the general things for kids there is a range of books to choose from, fossils, a range of oddities and toys. The fossils are mostly small things like titanosaur eggshells, theropod teeth, sea urchins and the sort. The oddities include taxidermy insects, small vertebrates in jars and modern animal skeletons. As for the toys, there is a range of CollectA, from the older models like their original T. rexes and some newer ones like the Mosasaurus, Diabloceratops and Quetzalcoatlus.

That sounds like a most unusual and interesting museum shop, with something for everyone. Over here, at least, I doubt anyone would dare put taxidermy on offer because there would be a huge outcry from the 'ethical' types. While it's true that some taxidermy is highly unethical, most modern specimens on the market are from animals who died naturally or were subject to pest control. Anyway, as far as I can recall from my last visit the gift shop at the NHM in London was almost entirely taken up by (all very cheap) dinosaur toys and dinosaur-themed children's books, in spite of the fact that the dinosaurs only make up a small part of the entire museum. The gift shop in the National Museum in Scotland is much better, as obviously only a small part is dedicated to natural history and it's about 50% non-dinosaur. They sell PAPO models, small fossils including trilobites and brachiopods and serious adult books on fossils and natural history.

[jooooo]

Thank you everyone!

I forgot to talk about the gift shop from the Oertijdmuseum, it's more extensive then the one at the Trix exhibit. There's no PAPO models but aside from the general things for kids there is a range of books to choose from, fossils, a range of oddities and toys. The fossils are mostly small things like titanosaur eggshells, theropod teeth, sea urchins and the sort. The oddities include taxidermy insects, small vertebrates in jars and modern animal skeletons. As for the toys, there is a range of CollectA, from the older models like their original T. rexes and some newer ones like the Mosasaurus, Diabloceratops and Quetzalcoatlus.

That sounds like a most unusual and interesting museum shop, with something for everyone. Over here, at least, I doubt anyone would dare put taxidermy on offer because there would be a huge outcry from the 'ethical' types. While it's true that some taxidermy is highly unethical, most modern specimens on the market are from animals who died naturally or were subject to pest control. Anyway, as far as I can recall from my last visit the gift shop at the NHM in London was almost entirely taken up by (all very cheap) dinosaur toys and dinosaur-themed children's books, in spite of the fact that the dinosaurs only make up a small part of the entire museum. The gift shop in the National Museum in Scotland is much better, as obviously only a small part is dedicated to natural history and it's about 50% non-dinosaur. They sell PAPO models, small fossils including trilobites and brachiopods and serious adult books on fossils and natural history.

It was very interesting indeed, although I'm not sure if taxidermy was the right word for it, it was a series of arthropod specimens pinned to a white background in a frame. The shop was probably around 25-50% kids stuff. There was a lot of literature about paleontology from the country.

[Tyto_Theropod]

Thank you everyone!

I forgot to talk about the gift shop from the Oertijdmuseum, it's more extensive then the one at the Trix exhibit. There's no PAPO models but aside from the general things for kids there is a range of books to choose from, fossils, a range of oddities and toys. The fossils are mostly small things like titanosaur eggshells, theropod teeth, sea urchins and the sort. The oddities include taxidermy insects, small vertebrates in jars and modern animal skeletons. As for the toys, there is a range of CollectA, from the older models like their original T. rexes and some newer ones like the Mosasaurus, Diabloceratops and Quetzalcoatlus.

That sounds like a most unusual and interesting museum shop, with something for everyone. Over here, at least, I doubt anyone would dare put taxidermy on offer because there would be a huge outcry from the 'ethical' types. While it's true that some taxidermy is highly unethical, most modern specimens on the market are from animals who died naturally or were subject to pest control. Anyway, as far as I can recall from my last visit the gift shop at the NHM in London was almost entirely taken up by (all very cheap) dinosaur toys and dinosaur-themed children's books, in spite of the fact that the dinosaurs only make up a small part of the entire museum. The gift shop in the National Museum in Scotland is much better, as obviously only a small part is dedicated to natural history and it's about 50% non-dinosaur. They sell PAPO models, small fossils including trilobites and brachiopods and serious adult books on fossils and natural history.

It was very interesting indeed, although I'm not sure if taxidermy was the right word for it, it was a series of arthropod specimens pinned to a white background in a frame. The shop was probably around 25-50% kids stuff. There was a lot of literature about paleontology from the country.

Preserved insects are sometimes as entemological specimens, but the term taxidermy can be applied to them as well, along with teeth and bones, wet specimens and any kind of preserved dead animal or animal part, even though in the strict sense it should only refer to mounted skins.

[stargatedalek]

Don't forget taxidermy fish, would that mean that casts also count in general, or are fish an exception?

[Tyto_Theropod]

Don't forget taxidermy fish, would that mean that casts also count in general, or are fish an exception?

No, sorry - I just forgot them! As I said, taxidermy would technically only include mounted skins, but is generally applied to everything related, casts included. But thanks for reminding me about them.