It's really how do we know what we know about dinosaurs.
So you are not just presenting facts to people, you are actually showing how you've got to that knowledge.
Yes, how do we translate the evidence that we find in the field into scientific knowledge.
So can I get a sneak preview?
Sure, of course.
Yeah.
Yes.
Our knowledge of dinosaurs has been transformed over recent years. And that means that when it opens, Luis' exhibition will aim to be the most scientifically accurate representation of dinosaurs ever. The science will be brought to live by a wide and varied cast of dinosaurs. But right now, the exhibition hall is a building site.
We are approaching the centre piece of the exhibit, a large platform that will support three Tyrannosaurus rex, what we call a gross series of the Tyrannosaurus rex.
Because a complete T-rex skeleton has never been found, Luis' team will have to reconstruct the missing bones. Then he will have to choose poses that reflect the latest scientific thinking on how these animals stood and moved. And with three T-rexes on a single platform, he'll even be considering how they interacted, all this for animals that went extinct 65 million years ago. But dinosaurs weren't all big and scary. We are still learning more about some of T-rex's relatives and Luis will also be reconstructing a tiny chicken-sized dinosaur called Fruitadens.
As you come in to the other gallery, there's gonna be a platform with a very large dinosaur, a long neck called Mamenchisaurus and a tiny little one, the tiny Fruitadens--the smallest dinosaur in North America.
They have to build Fruitadens from a little more than these fossil remains. It's never been reconstructed before. So working out what it looked like is a huge challenge. And Luis' team will be doing much more than just piecing bones back together, they’ll be creating a life-like model of the animal, which means adding muscles and skin.