RAWR! Prehistoric creatures in motion at new Dubuque museum exhibit

DUBUQUE — Dinosaurs stomping the earth, covered in feathers?

New evidence suggests the mighty T. rex and other creatures great and small started life covered in juvenile feathers that made them look like hairy beasts, and some retained remnants of those feathers, especially around their elbows.

Those wonders may not jump out at you right away. You're more likely to jump at the mighty bellows and ferocious jaw action, head bobs, tail swishes and 'breathing' rib cages on 15 life-size, animatronic dinosaurs roaring to life through Oct. 10 at the National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium.

But when you recover your breath, and remind yourself you aren't in Jurassic Park, you can step closer and see for yourself the commonalities between dinos in the air and on dry land.

All but one of these fascinating creatures are contained on the second floor. It's the same 6,000-square-foot exhibit space that last summer lured 154,065 visitors to explore the Titanic from drawing board to watery grave, through artifacts, room re-creations and educational displays.

Premiere Exhibitions out of Atlanta, the same company that brought the record-setting Titanic exhibit to Dubuque, has teamed up with Dinosaurs Unearthed, based in British Columbia, Canada, to bring the mammoth prehistoric experience to the sprawling museum in the Port of Dubuque.

One creature is too big to be contained indoors. The 60-foot Apatosaurus — which means 'deceptive lizard' — greets visitors along the boardwalk connecting the museum's main buildings. Don't worry — he's a vegetarian. His contemporaries had more to fear from his tail than his voice.

The exhibition will fascinate all ages, and wisely begins with a more mild introduction to the Mesozoic Era, before turning a corner into a cacophony of thundering counterpoint that might be too intense for little ones — or older ones who easily jump out of their skin. The velociraptor's screech made me screech, for which I blame Steven Spielberg and his stealthy, stalking bad-guys who terrorized the 'Jurassic Park' cinematic franchise.

'We're hoping that it's a learning experience. It's not meant to be scary,' said John Sutter, the museum's director of marketing and sales. Even though the creatures are 'very realistic,' he thinks kids who have been watching 'Dinosaur Train' cartoons and dinosaur films 'will be fine.'

The museum also is showing a new 3D film, 'The Flying Monsters,' tracing today's birds back to yesterday's pterosaurs. Kids also can dig deeper through dinosaur day camps and a plethora of school field trips spring and fall.

'Normally we don't open an exhibit like this until Memorial Day weekend,' Sutter said. 'We opened it two weeks earlier to give more schools an opportunity to come see this, and we're pretty booked.'

The dino-to-bird debate is nothing new. It's been evolving ever since Charles Darwin published his 'Origin of the Species' in 1859. Skeletal commonalities were discovered a century later, and continue to emerge. Visitors will learn all this and more, by reading the placards that accompany each facet of the myth-busting exhibition, beginning with this one:

'We once thought of dinosaurs as coldblooded reptiles. We once thought of all dinosaurs as being covered in a tough scaly skin. We once thought that dinosaurs were unintelligent. Prepare to face a new reality.'

Skeletons | Fossils

Massive skeleton recreations greet guests at the exhibition's entrance, providing some jaw-dropping scale to understand just how giant these creatures were. Along with assorted bones and fossils of everything from claws, skulls and teeth to horns and hind feet, three life-size skeleton depictions of massive creatures that roamed China:

• Yangchuanosaurus, a ferocious 2- to 3-ton carnivore that moved on powerful hind legs, and also sported big, sharp teeth and little front legs, akin to the Allosaurus in North America;

• Omeisaurus, 4-ton, 60-foot plant-eater that walked on four legs and had a graceful neck that could be 30 feet long;

• Tuojiangosaurus: Another plant-eater, covered in massive, fearsome spikes on its back and tail.

It's impossible to tell the replicas from the real deal in the collection's 23 fossils, but among the real items is the perennial crowd favorite: dinosaur poop.

Creatures

The 15 lifelike animatronic creatures, including the outdoor Apatosaurus, look like they could walk right out of the display and terrorize downtown Dubuque. Their arrival on 12 semis created quite the stir, especially when they were walked into the museum this spring. The 40-foot T. rex was the largest to bring inside.

'Some of them came off the truck whole and some of them we need to attach their legs to them, but it was really weird to see these prehistoric creatures on our front lawn,' Sutter said. 'Guests were holding the door while we moved a dinosaur into the building. We had a couple of school groups here, and the field trip stopped so they could see the dinosaurs.'

Now safely in place, guests will see a lot of familiar roaring forms, including a juvenile and adult Tyrannosaurus rex, Allosaurus, Stegosaurus, Triceratops and velociraptor, along with the more exotic feathered beasts, the Gigantoraptor, Microraptor, Confuciusornis and Sinosauropteryx, some of which flap their wings.

Hands-on

Plenty of interactive stations let visitors explore the dinos and their lives at the touch of a button or swish of a brush through the fossil-dig. The latter is called 'Kids Dig Tables,' but they're plenty of fun for adults, too.

Touch Stations reveal facts about dinosaur digestion, sounds, anatomy, skin and bones.

And before you step around the corner to the animatronic room, guests can get a taste of what's to come at the Stegosaurus 'Make Me Move' stop, where push-buttons let guests control movements from head to tail.

While you're there

The dinosaur exhibit is just the tip of what the museum campus has to offer.

Every space is fascinating, with displays and exhibits of life along the Mighty Mississippi and clear views of life inside its murky waters. A riverboat museum, wetland interpretive area, a steamboat, splash zone and the National Rivers Hall of Fame let you easily spend a whole day at the complex.

The aquariums alone will captivate kids of all ages. The Main Channel contains some of the Mississippi's largest fish, including sturgeon, catfish and gar. The Bayou lets you see creatures from the Lower Mississippi, complete with an alligator. And the four Rivers to the Sea aquariums, the largest of which is 30 feet long and 15 feet high, contain marine habitats along North America's rivers.

Animals frolic among permanent exhibits, as well, giving visitors up-close views of playful otters and creatures from backwater marshes and the Mississippi's seasonally flooded forest regions.

Overnight adventures lead the way for expanded educational opportunities. Who wouldn't like to spend a night at the museum? Check out all of the planned activities at Rivermuseum.com

If You Go

What: 'Dinosaurs Unearthed'

Where: National Mississippi River Museum, Port of Dubuque, 350 E. Third St., Dubuque

When: Through Oct. 10; 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily through May 26; 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day; 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily Labor Day through Oct. 31

Admission: Various combinations; basic admission $10 to $15; add $5 for 'Dinosaurs Unearthed'; Total Experience with two 4D films $19 to $21

Extras: Related film 'Flying Monsters 3D,' about pterosaurs that took to the skies

Information: Rivermuseum.com