Museum digs dino skulls out of storage for exhibit
Scientific replicas of real skulls were a hit with visitors before being moved years ago to basement
Long stored in the basement of Kelowna’s museum, two dinosaur skulls will be brought upstairs this Saturday and put back on public display.
Fearsome-looking casts of a tyrannosaurus rex and a triceratops were acquired by the local museum several decades ago from the American Museum of Natural History in New York.
“They used to be on display all the time as part of our regular collection, and they were some of our most popular artifacts,” museum curator Linda Digby said Tuesday.
The skulls are exact, scientifically made replicas of the real things. They were moved to the basement years ago as part of ongoing efforts to make the museum more relevant to the history of the Central Okanagan.
“We have limited square footage, so some items in our collection that aren’t so directly connected to our local people, places and culture go into storage,” Digby said.
The big skulls are being put on display as part of Dino Dig!, a family-friendly paleontology exhibition that includes the chance to hunt for real fossils in material brought from Alberta’s dinosaur-rich badlands.
Dino Dig! runs from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. each of the next three Saturdays at the downtown museum.
Digby, who worked at a museum in Drumheller, Alta., before moving to Kelowna, says there’s an enduring fascination with dinosaurs among both kids and adults that should be well served by the upcoming display.
“We often get visitors coming in, who were here once as a child, who ask, ‘What did you do with your dinosaur skulls?’” she said.