Ben Miller

@extinctmonsters

Thinking about the art and history of paleontology in museums. Exhibit developer at the Field Museum, opinions my own. he/him Website: extinctmonsters.net

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Ben Miller@extinctmonsters· 24d

Baby Allosaurus 1: Moooom! Baby Allosaurus 2: *flees the scene*

Cast skeleton of baby Allosaurus with mouth wide open

2nd cast skeleton in full run, neither foot touching the ground

Ben Miller@extinctmonsters· 25d

more of this please (from www.cgtrader.com/3d-print-mod...

Zbrush model of a mechanical/steampunk/robot cape buffalo

Ben Miller@extinctmonsters· 25d

Beautiful restoration-free mounts of T. rex skulls by Phil Fraley. And the only example I know of where the label asks you to look at and appreciate the armature! #FossilFriday

Big, medium, and small dinosaur skulls in museum case. Since they are only partially complete, metal armature suspends the fragments in place and fills in the gaps in wireframe

Graphic panel. Relevant text says:
Rock hard, yet very fragile
It's rare to discover a complete skull of any dinosaur. And it takes a scientist's knowledge of anatomy and a metalworker's trained hand to create mounts like these.
The three original fossil skulls are on display in this case because they are too rare and fragile to mount as skeletons. Take a look at the metal frameworks that hold these bones together — they are works of art!

Ben Miller@extinctmonsters· 27d

Here are some rad dinosaurs that we know about because the land they were found on was protected as Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Guess what land isn't protected anymore?

Cast skeleton of Lythronax, a smallish tyrannosaur, in a museum exhibit corral

Mounted skeleton of Gryposaurus rounding a bend, with Utahceratops on display behind

View from above of the round body of Akainacephalus, an ankylosaur

Headless skeleton of a baby hadrosaur partially prepped out of its matrix

Ben Miller@extinctmonsters· 27d

Iguana on a patio with some serious jowls

Ben Miller@extinctmonsters· 29d

Man, do I need to go back to school? I have no memory of it, but apparently I was writing poignant-ass paragraphs left and right in grad school. From this 2013 (!) blog post. extinctmonsters.net/2013/03/23/d...

Drama and natural history
While running errands this morning a thought came to me: a natural history exhibit in a museum is a lot like a stage performance. When watching a play, the viewer knows she is seeing a performance, but is willing to suspend disbelief so long as the fantasy is well-created. To varying degrees, most modern natural history exhibits engage in the same theatrical relationship with their audiences. Exhibits re-create reality within the museum environment, and visitors accept the performance as truth.

Ben Miller@extinctmonsters· 29d

thanks google, doing great work here

Screenshot of google results for "impact after the age of dinosaurs.". Sponsored result from Answers in Genesis appears above the AMNH exhibit I was looking for.

Ben Miller@extinctmonsters· Jul 11

hello from the marsh 🐍🐝🦆🐾🌾🪷

Duckweed covered shallow water with lots of stumps

Ben Miller@extinctmonsters· Jul 9

As seen in this week’s Longrich et al. paper, here’s PR 4920, the teensiest T. rex dentary

Little rectangle of bone mounted to an acrylic square. Behind it is a larger tyrannosaur jaw for comparison.

Diagram comparing small and smaller baby rex silhouettes to a cat, which is slightly bigger

Ben Miller@extinctmonsters· Jul 7

On a walk by the prairie

Iguana amongst some grasses and wildflowers

Ben Miller@extinctmonsters· Jul 7

Triceratops would never have let any of this bs happen

Mounted Triceratops skeleton in a beige museum exhibit

Ben Miller@extinctmonsters· Jul 4

Wait everyone shut up for a second: the discovery of the Brachiosaurus holotype is at the exact midpoint between the founding of the United States and today (July 4, 1901)