Natural History Museum of Utah

Last weekend, after we finished up WIFYR (which I will post about in greater detail later), Cyn and I took a day to check out the brand-new Rio Tinto facility for the Natural History Museum of Utah.  Overlooking downtown Salt Lake City, the place is gorgeous.

View from deck of museum showing wildfire

Naturally enough, the displays are primarily of Utah dinosaurs and paleo-critters, with emphasis on the Cleveland-Lloyd Quarry (Jurassic), the Cedar Mountain Formation (Cretaceous), and the Kaiparowits Formation (Cretaceous).

I particularly enjoyed the life-sized Cretaceous diorama featuring a troodontid scavenging a ceratopsian skull, and the wall of some 14 or so ceratopsian heads, showing the family tree, as it were.

Also notable is the display of a pack of juvenile Allosaurus attacking a Barosaraus.

In addition, the museum has a sizeable display of Cenozoic creatures, including the dire wolf and the Columbian mammoth, as well as a display of hominid evolution. 

It was kind of neat seeing some of the creatures that feature in CHRONAL ENGINE, including T.rex, Ornithomimus, oviraptorids, Deinosuchus, and Parasaurolophus.

Here are some of the mounted skeletons:

Deinosuchus, with tyrannosaurs in background

Teratophoneus

Stalked by Deinosuchus

Parasaurolophus

Juvenile Allosaurus

Utahceratops

Ornithomimus

Oviraptorid

Falcarius

Nothronychus

Globe showing North America during Late Cretaceous

Wall of ceratopsians

Troodontid and ceratopsian