National Dinosaur Museum

Life Size Triceratops outside the Museum

National Dinosaur Museum

One of the Australian Capital Territories’ main tourist attractions, the National Dinosaur Museum explains evolution through the use of fossils and interactive displays. Animatronics and recreated landscapes bring the displays to life, adding a lot of fun to the museum.

Outside the museum, a dinosaur-themed playground keeps the kids entertained, a life size Triceratops greets you at the entrance.

Life Size Triceratops outside the Museum
Life Size Triceratops outside the National Dinosaur Museum

Laid out chronologically, the displays take you though the evolution of life. Starting with invertebrates, displays of trilobites and giant scorpions explain some of the earlier life forms. Many of the displays are casts (these are clearly marked), but some are original. Even so, there is a great range of them.

Invertebrates

Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Reptiles

The main focus of the museum is dinosaurs, with this section being the largest. Life-size recreations of pterodactyls fly overhead as you go up the stairs. Displays of life size models and skeletons follow, including T-Rex and carnotaurus. Many of these are surrounded by dioramas, giving more context to the display, rather than simply sitting on a display stand.

The stegosaurus display includes a side-by-side comparison of the skeleton and recreated model. This is great because many museums show only one or the other and not both.

The Rise of Mammals

Following the dinosaurs, displays of mammals include a giant sloth, sabre tooth tiger and a mammoth skeleton. It was surprising to see how large the sloth was, having never seen one of these before.

Evolution of Mankind

The final fossil section traced the evolution of our own species from “Lucy” and homo habilis to the Neanderthals.

Geodes

The final area of the museum contains amethyst geodes. These are huge, making a great display around the mammoth.

A gift shop sells all sorts of dinosaur related merchandise, including models, fridge magnets and books. Especially interesting, were the fossils and gemstones for sale.

So, if you have an interest in dinosaurs, or have kids, this is a great visit. As Australia does not have many dinosaur fossils of its own (most are in Queensland), many are casts, but they are still a great display.

To see what else there is to do in New South Wales, please see some of our other stories.

Comments

6 responses to “National Dinosaur Museum”

  1. 100 Country Trek Avatar

    This is sointeresting..I saw the Dinosaur Museum in Alberta .it really caught my attention.

    1. Destinations Avatar

      Thankyou for reading! It was a fun and interesting place to visit. We loved the life sized replicas. Would be great to get to Alberta some time and see the museum there.

  2. jmankowsky Avatar

    Fascinating. Looks like such a colorful and awe-some place to visit!

    1. Destinations Avatar

      It really was. Thank you for reading

  3. markbierman Avatar

    Cool museum, there’s one similar to this not far from here.

    1. Destinations Avatar

      We loved it, there aren’t too many in Australia, so very interesting

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