Yale museum mural that influenced Godzilla unveiled after renovations

— After nearly four years under wraps, the 110-foot mural that inspired a generation of paleontologists and influenced the design of fictional monster Godzilla is back.

The Age of Reptiles mural, completed in 1947 by Yale grad Rudolph F. Zallinger, is one of the most familiar features of the Yale Peabody Museum. It depicts the evolution of vertebrates, starting with underwater creatures and ending with the mass extinction that killed the giant dinosaurs.

On Wednesday, museum staff finished removing corrugated tiles that had been covering the mural during the Peabody’s renovation.

When the Peabody reopens next year, visitors will notice a lot of changes, said Chris Norris, a vertebrate paleontologist and the museum’s director of public programs.

They’ll meet an 8-foot-tall, lifelike model of gastornis, an extinct flightless bird that recently joined the collection.

They also may notice differences in the Peabody’s beloved Brontosaurus skeleton, which dominates the center of the Burke Hall of Dinosaurs. While it once stood on a large island in the center of the room with its tail dragging behind it, Norris said, the remounted creature now stands on a much smaller island with its tail in the air, allowing visitors to gaze directly up at the skeleton.

But one important part of the museum will look roughly the same: Zallinger’s mural. Aside from a cleaning and some refurbishing, no changes have been made to it.

“There are still really familiar touchstones that will resonate with people, particularly in the New Haven community who’ve grown up with this museum,” Norris said. “This mural is definitely one of them. I think everybody that’s ever visited this museum can remember the first time they walked into this space (and saw the mural). ”

An exact date has not yet been set, but the museum is slated to reopen to the public with free admission next year.

Though the mural remains largely unchanged, the way visitors experience it may be different. For the first time, the Peabody is adding a tactile representation of Zallinger’s masterpiece

For people who are blind or partially sighted, the feature will enable them to “interpret the mural through touch,” said Norris.

A portion of the exhibition also will be devoted to interpreting the mural in a way that explains some of its inaccuracies, he said.

Given scientific advances in the 76 years since Zallinger completed the mural, our understanding of many of its elements have changed, and an artist painting it today would likely make some changes.

Though the theory that an asteroid impact was responsible for the cataclysm is now widely accepted, it wasn’t in the 1940s. Instead, Zallinger chose to paint volcanic activity. A modern-day artist also would be likely to present a different depiction of the Brontosaurus, a huge figure shown sitting in marshy water near the center of the mural.

“They assumed that something that big could only, you know, survive if it had the weight of its body taken by the water,” said Norris.

In fact, scientists have learned that the Brontosaurus was much lighter than previously believed, according to Norris.