ATTACK OF THE MOSASAUR

Meet the Pink Palace’s new prehistoric ambassador

A mosasaur is not a dinosaur.

You know what else? That monster with the square head played by Boris Karloff, he is not Frankenstein. He was created by a doctor named Frankenstein.

It doesn’t really matter. People call the monster Frankenstein. And when kids arriving at the Pink Palace get a gander at the 25-foot prehistoric marine creature with the rows of dagger-like teeth inside its 46inch-long jaws and the hungry look inside its empty eye sockets (how is that even possible?), they are likely to exclaim, with somewhat nervous glee: “LOOK AT THAT DINOSAUR!”

A mosasaur by any other name would be as fierce. A flippered predator of the underwater Mid-south of the Cretaceous era, this mosasaur was resurrected in skeletal form by artists and blacksmiths at the Metal Museum and now can be found at the redesigned Central Avenue entrance of the Memphis Pink Palace Museum.

Elevated some 15 feet in the air atop sturdy supports, the mosasaur appears to be swimming through space, in defiance of

A flippered predator of the underwater Mid-south ... this mosasaur was resurrected ... by artists and blacksmiths at the Metal Museum.

gravity as well as history, which tells us the species went extinct some 71 million years ago. The creature may be a goner, but its presence is intended to offer dramatic reminder that the Pink Palace is not only alive and well — even in the era of COVID-19 — but thriving and evolving.

“The idea was, ‘How about we put a mosasaur at the entrance instead of that ugly guard shack?’” said Kevin Thompson, the relatively new executive director at the Pink Palace (he’s had the job about a year, after seven years on the museum board).

“It’s going to visually indicate what we are about and what we do,” Thompson said. “And I hope it will be an attraction, in and of itself.”

A local connection to the mosasaur

A mosasaur was chosen as the new symbol of the Pink Palace because mosasaur bones have been among the most exciting fossils unearthed some 105 miles east of Memphis at the Coon Creek Science Center in Mcnairy County, which is operated by the Pink Palace.

“Dinosaurs are always cool, even if they’re not exactly dinosaurs,” Thompson said. “This was the main creature of our area at the time, when we were underwater. It was not a nice creature.”

Part of a $70,000 entrance redesign project, the mosasaur skeleton was created from cast aluminum and forged steel at the foundry and blacksmith shop at the Metal Museum, located south of Downtown on the banks of the Mississippi River.

“Twenty-five foot long in a straight line, from nose to tail,” according to Reed Peck-kriss, a Metal Museum apprentice, the metal replica skeleton weighs about a ton — about 150 pounds of which is crocodilian head.

“I spent more time with every one of those sharp teeth than I care to admit,” said Bob Rogers, a Metal Museum volunteer who helped on the project.

A new symbol for the Pink Palace

With longtime Metal Museum shop foreman Jim Masterson and foundry manager James Vanderpool in charge, the monster was created with computers as well as old school hammers and mechanical tools: A Cincinnati company used a programmed three-dimensional model of an actual mosasaur skeleton to sculpt, in foam, accurate replica pieces that were sent to Memphis to be cast in metal, pieced together, painted, trucked to the Pink Palace, and hoisted with a crane onto support poles at the museum entrance.

Set to be officially unveiled Saturday, the mosasaur was put in place this week to serve as an ambassador for this weekend’s big Pink Palace event, “Fossil Fest,” which hosts activities indoors and on the museum lawn (including “fossil digs” through beds of dirt imported from Coon Creek). The creature’s duties go beyond Fossil Fest and even fulltime sentry duty, however: Thompson said the mosasaur will become something of a symbol as the Memphis Pink Palace Museum rebrands itself as the Pink Palace Museum of Science & History or MOSH, a name that identifies the attraction’s mission as a natural history museum and as a repository for historic Mid-south artifacts.

Meanwhile, the artists and smiths at the Metal Museum are relieved to no longer have their blacksmith shop occupied by a gargantuan ancient undersea reptile, even if they’ll sort of miss the critter’s toothy smile and pillow-sized flippers.

“We’ve had a lot of unusual projects,” Peck-kriss said, “but this was definitely a highlight.”

JOE RONDONE/THE COMMERCIAL APPEAL Reed Peck-kriss, right, works at the Metal Museum on March 16 to secure the head of a life-size metal skeleton of a mosasaur, a prehistoric marine creature, to be hung outside the Pink Palace.

WILLIAM WALSH/PINK PALACE This mosasaur skeleton calls the entrance of the Memphis Pink Palace Museum home. It was created at the Metal Museum.

JOE RONDONE/ THE COMMERCIAL APPEAL James Vanderpool holds part of a mosasaur’s sculpted jawbone on March 16.

PHOTOS BY JOE RONDONE/THE COMMERCIAL APPEAL Jacob Brown adjusts vertebrae as he works at the Metal Museum on March 16 to create a life-size metal skeleton of a mosasaur to be hung outside the Pink Palace.

Clockwise from left, Jacob Brown, James Vanderpool and Reed Peck-kriss work at the Metal Museum on March 16 to secure the head of a life-size metal skeleton of a Mosasaur.