Rio de Janeiro sees world's largest dinosaur park
Locals and tourists are thrilled to visit the world's largest dinosaur park in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to get close to life-size animatronic dinosaurs and seek an adventure in real rainforest.
Two hours away from the city, the park called "Terra dos Dinos," or Land of the Dinos, was built on a 1.4 million square meter ecological reserve with native Brazil's Atlantic rainforest. It features 40 impressive life-size animatronic dinosaurs designed based on scientific data about the extinct ancient creatures, making visitors feel as if they have traveled back to the times of dinosaurs.
It is the childhood dream of Marcio Clare, a businessman who bought 30 animatronic dinosaurs from China and had them shipped back to Brazil. Another ten were made by a Brazilian artist.
"I can say that this is a Chinese park because most of the dinosaurs came from China, but it is also an environmental project because we didn't cut down one single tree to build it so visitors can enjoy nature while learning about the earth's past," said Clare, CEO of the park.
Clare says people will be captivated by the park and to learn that these beasts lived between nearly 252 million years to about 66 million years ago.
These particularly animated replicas are almost totally historically accurate, because the curator of the park is none other than Alexander Kellner, a leading Brazilian paleontologist who has named dozens of species of dinosaurs.
"This Dino Park is not only the largest we have in our country right now, but also the first one that I had the pleasure to work with trying to make science really a leading part of this. So, it is the most accurate that I know of, and I am really looking forward for everyone to visit and to have a good time," said Kellner, also director of Brazil's National Museum, one of the most prestigious institutions of natural history in the Americas.
Educational and fun, this open-air museum also offers other attractions such as a suspended tree-top trail and a zipline to fly over the Atlantic Forest.