If you head over to posh Berkeley Square in Mayfair, you can see the skeleton of a juvenile T-Rex dinosaur on the street.
It’s actually a bronze cast from a life sized juvenile T-Rex skeleton called ‘Chomper’ which was excavated in Garfield County, Montana, USA in 2019. The actual dino-bones are held nearby by the David Aaron gallery, and are on sale for an eye-watering $20 million, but to make it easier for people to see the dinosaur, they commissioned a 3D scan and cast it in bronze.
That’s not hugely unusual – many museum dinosaurs are actually casts from the skeletons, and often a composite from many partial skeletons joined together. You’re rarely looking at a complete skeleton, and more a Dr Frankenstein creation.
Of course, that doesn’t really matter, as the aim is to make them look impressive and as close as contemporary science understands them to have looked. These slights of hand do not affect the detailed scientific examinations, which are intended to wow the public and inspire future dinosaur researchers.
This particular juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton is approximately 55% complete, and importantly, its skull is over 90% complete, which is unusually rare for T-Rex skeletons.
This bronze cast of the 66-68 million year old T-Rex will be in Berkeley Square until early next year.
🎶🎵 I may be right, I may be wrong but I’m perfectly willing to swear, that when you turned and smiled at me, a dinosaur stood in Berkeley Square 🎶🎵