Carnegie Museum of Natural History

One of the Four Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh

dinosaurs

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Dippy’s Looking Good in Our Museum Store

Thanks to our visitors for helping us to rebrand last year! You asked, and we listened: we are featuring Dippy on everything from coffee mugs to socks…

Socks with Dippy logo

We adore the socks and hope you will, too. The multi-colored Dippy’s bring a burst of fun to your wardrobe. The black and white ones are classy enough to pair with your wedding tux!

The Dippy silhouette is truly a community-created design that reflects our most famous (and first!) dino in Dinosaur Hall. Thank you for your role in bringing Diplodocus carnegii to life in a fresh, new way.

Did you get some Dippy swag? Take a selfie and tag us in it on Instagram @carnegiemnh! We’d love to see you loving Dippy.

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Dryosaurus altus

Dryosaurus altus was a Jurassic plant eater that could be found in the forests and fern prairies of North America 150 million years ago. As a small dinosaur, measuring about 10 feet long, this dinosaur’s best defense against predators was its speed.

Dryosaurus altus was a Jurassic plant eater that could be found in the forests and fern prairies of North America 150 million years ago. As a small dinosaur, measuring about 10 feet long, this dinosaur’s best defense against predators was its speed.

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Tyrannosaurus rex

Tyrannosaurus rex was one of the largest predators to ever walk the Earth. Growing up to 46 feet in length and standing 13 feet high at the hips, this meat-eater could weigh up to seven tons.

T. rex was more than just enormous, it was ferocious. It had massive hind legs with three-toed feet, small, strong arms the size of a man’s, and a huge, heavy tail that was used as a counterbalance.

head of a T.rex skeleton
Credit: Joshua Franzos for Carnegie Museum of Natural History

Its skull grew to five feet long and housed strong jaws that created a bone-crushing bite. It had nearly 60 serrated, razor-sharp teeth that grew up to six inches in length. With a name that means “tyrant lizard king,” this dinosaur feasted on the large herbivores of its time.

view of T.rex teeth from inside the dinosaur's mouth
Credit: Joshua Franzos for Carnegie Museum of Natural History

T. rex roamed the western United States and southwestern Canada during the late Cretaceous Period, about 66 to 68 million years ago. The specimen on display at Carnegie Museum of Natural History was discovered in 1902 by Barnum Brown and sent to the American Museum of Natural History. It was bought by the Carnegie Museum in 1941.

This specimen is extremely important because it is the holotype of the species. A holotype is a specimen upon which a given species is based. So, in other words, Carnegie Museum of Natural History’s T. rex is the ‘gold standard’ to which all potential fossils of this notorious meat-eater must forever be compared. Although a few specimens that are now known to belong to T. rex were found prior to the discovery of the holotype, the holotype was, by definition, the first fossil of the species to be recognized by science. Therefore, it can be considered the world’s first specimen of the world’s most famous dinosaur.

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Carnegie History: T. Rex Mural

painted mural of a T. Rex dinosaur in blues and greens

Do you remember when this mural towered over Carnegie Museum of Natural History’s Dinosaur Hall?

It brought one of our fiercest specimens to life when the museum’s chief artist Ottmar von Fuehrer painted it on the south
end of the hall in 1950. Von Fuehrer recognized the value that art brought to science and paid enormous attention to detail in order to give a face and an environment to the ferocious fossilized skeleton that stood nearby. As he painted, visitors returned to the museum month after month to watch, sometimes offering feedback and asking questions.

Though the mural is no longer in the hall, you can take home new merchandise inspired by a vintage piece of Carnegie history.

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Who is Dr. Matt Lamanna?

Matt Lamanna on expedition in Antarctica

Did you know that Section of Vertebrate Paleontology curator Matt Lamanna has discovered dinosaur fossils on all seven
continents, including Antarctica?

Dr. Lamanna leads the Antarctic Peninsula Paleontology Project, an international team of scientists investigating the end
of the Mesozoic Era (”Age of Dinosaurs”) in Antarctica, and also leads or co-leads research projects studying dinosaurs in Patagonia (Argentina), the Sahara (Egypt), and the Australian Outback.

Lamanna has named or co-named 15 new species of dinosaurs and fossil birds, including Anzu wyliei and three of the largest land animals known to science—the titanosaurian sauropods Dreadnoughtus schrani, Notocolossus gonzalezparejasi, and Paralititan stromeri. Each of these massive sauropods is estimated to have weighed more
than 40 tons, roughly equivalent to eight adult elephants.

Lamanna has co-authored two papers in the preeminent journal Science and appeared on television programs for PBS (NOVA), the Discovery Channel, the History Channel, A&E, the Science Channel, and more. Recently, he assisted the US Department of Homeland Security in their investigation of a dinosaur fossil that had been illegally smuggled out of China.

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Celebrated fossil quarry

old black and white photo of fossil quarry at Dinosaur National Monument in Utah

The celebrated fossil quarry at what is now recognized as Dinosaur National Monument in Utah was discovered in 1909 by Carnegie Museum field collector Earl Douglass.

From 1909–1923, Douglass and his crews collected more than 350 tons (700,000 pounds) of fossils from that site alone. Several dinosaur skeletons discovered by Douglass at this quarry are featured in our core exhibition hall, Dinosaurs in Their Time.

Others grace the exhibit halls of other prominent North American museums, such as the American Museum of Natural History in New York, the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC, the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, and the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto.