Dino bone on display
Dry bones
EL DORADO — Visitors to the Barton Public Library will be able to see a life-like dinosaur bone on display.
The 3-foot tall bone is a museum casting of a had-rosaurid femur.
“Museums use castings of dinosaur fossils when showcasing them because of their radioactivity and the potential for pyrite disease (rotting due to environmental changes) that may occur, says donor and collector Lucy Gibney.
Gibney donated the fossils along with a display of drawings to help properly educate the public on prehistoric accuracy.
Radioactivity is a naturally occurring event in most, if not all dinosaur specimens explains Gibney who’s traveled the world. Gibney adamantly explains that dinosaurs were animals and that their bodies were greatly affected by many environmental factors particularly the air they breathed.
“The air was oxygen-rich. Oxygen is the most important thing when looking at an animal size,” Gibney says. She says gigantism was prolific during those oxygen rich eras. “You had
giant insects too,” Gibney explains.
Along with the femur, visitors can expect to see a very large nautiloid shell from France, a Paleolithic period sabertooth lion skull and an actual cycad fossil of a proto-tree from Texas.
Gibney believes in having accurate information when educating others about the culture of science. “You should give folks the tools to have their own ideas,” says Gibney, “without trivializing great slabs of time.” Dinosaurs were not circus acts and neither were they a fairground ride she says.
The femur bone along with the other fossils will be on display at Barton Public Library.