“Ben the Plateosaurus” joins the Dinosaur Gallery on its tenth anniversary from 15 December 2017

• “Ben the Plateosaurus” joins the Dinosaur Gallery to mark its tenth anniversary. • It’s party time: Dino Family Day this Sunday 17/12/2017 • December 2017: the dinosaurs go into town! An event made possible thanks to various partners • A word from the Swiss Embassy in Belgium • Photo of Stan; the T. rex in the Dinosaur Gallery

Press pack December 2017 Ben the Plateosaurus and the 10 th anniversary of the Dinosaur Gallery www.sciencesnaturelles.be

Press release: “Ben the Plateosaurus” joins the Dinosaur Gallery to mark its tenth anniversary.

With a floor area of 3000 m 2, our Dinosaur Gallery , which opened in 2007, is the largest room in Europe entirely devoted to the dinosaurs . It led to our Natural Sciences Museum being classed as one of the “world’s ten best dinosaur museums” by CNN in 2015.

The new exhibition space, inaugurated exactly 10 years ago , has since welcomed over 3.2 million visitors.

These ten years of success have motivated us constantly to increase our offer to our enthusiastic, knowledgeable and demanding public. To mark the anniversary, Ben the Plateosaurus, an exceptional fossil 210 million years old, discovered in Switzerland, will join the iguanodons, T. rex , Triceratops and other dinosaurs in our Gallery.

Ben is exceptional because:

o Our plateosaurus is an almost complete, authentic fossilised skeleton (at 80% complete?) .

o It can, therefore, be exhibited without a glass case (but not without protection…), in a natural, attractive pose.

o At 210 million years old, it is one of the very first large dinosaurs to inhabit the Earth . Before it, dinosaurs were no bigger than 1.5 m. Close to the origin of sauropods such as Diplodocus , it was also one of the first “long-necked” dinosaurs.

We would like to take the opportunity to thank our partners, artists and Museum staff and above all the many crowdfunding donors (over 550!) who have enthusiastically helped to finance Ben’s installation.

About Ben

Press pack December 2017 Ben the Plateosaurus and the 10 th anniversary of the Dinosaur Gallery www.sciencesnaturelles.be

Ben the Plateosaurus in figures

{ 1 authentic fossilised skeleton (put together from two individual animals) { No glass case for a true face to face experience! { Approximately 6.5 m long, making it one of the first large dinosaurs { 200 fossilised bones, prepared and assembled in the Museum by the Plateoteam { 210 million years old …!

Ben is an authentic skeleton from the village of Frick in Switzerland. It was named after the palaeontologist who discovered it – Ben Pabst. The Plateoteam, a team of palaeontologists and technicians at the Museum of Natural Sciences, worked for 18 months to extract the bones and reconstruct the skeleton. It is now on permanent display at the Museum of Natural Sciences in Brussels, to mark the 10th anniversary of the opening of the Dinosaur Gallery.

Measuring around 6.50 m in length and living some 210 million years ago, it is one of the largest dinosaurs of the Triassic period (its predecessors did not exceed 1.5 m). Above all, it is also one of the first “long-necked” dinosaurs. It belonged to the line of prosauropods, precursors of the sauropods such as Diplodocus . It had a long tail and a relatively long neck. Its size enabled it to feed on a wide variety of plants (though it probably ate anything it came across: insects, small animals, carrion, etc.). As a biped, Plateosaurus could rear up when required and thus reach the leaves on higher branches. It lived in a herd and used its powerful front claws to defend itself.

Where does our fossilised specimen come from?

Our plateosaurus comes from Frick quarry in Switzerland. This specimen has not so far been found anywhere other than in Europe: to date examples have only been found in Germany, Switzerland and France. Frick quarry is an exceptional location for finds of dinosaurs from the end of the Triassic period (around 210 million years ago). More than 30 Plateosaurus skeletons in various stages of completeness have been unearthed there in the last 40 years. While the majority of initial discoveries were accidental, various systematic excavations have been planned and conducted since 1976. The rich finds made recently have given us a better understanding of the anatomy and way of life of the Plateosaurus . After Bernissart (near Mons in Belgium, site of discovery of the Iguanodons in 1878), Frick is one of the richest locations in Europe in terms of the concentration of articulated dinosaur skeletons. These dinosaurs were probably engulfed in the mud of the huge marshlands that covered the region at the end of the Triassic period.

Press pack December 2017 Ben the Plateosaurus and the 10 th anniversary of the Dinosaur Gallery www.sciencesnaturelles.be The Frick Dinosaur Museum offered our Institute the permanent loan of a Plateosaurus specimen. Too many unprepared fossils are accumulating in their storerooms and they cannot prepare them all. Consequently, they prefer to send them abroad: the host institution must prepare the skeleton that is on loan and then display it in its exhibition room.

“Ben preparing in the wings” November 2017 © Th.Hubin @Museum

Press pack December 2017 Ben the Plateosaurus and the 10 th anniversary of the Dinosaur Gallery www.sciencesnaturelles.be About the Dinosaur Gallery

© Th.Hubin@Muséum

“The Dinosaur Gallery”

The Dinosaur Gallery in figures

{ 39 different species (= types) of dinosaur on display, including real specimens and casts.

{ With the arrival of Ben the Plateosaurus, 46 complete or relatively complete dinosaur specimens (= individuals) are on display

{ These 46 specimens, which may also be very high quality, scientific casts, include 23 complete or relatively complete authentic, fossilised skeletons (such as 5 ceratops skulls, 11 eggs and some 10 original bones of other dinosaurs).

For further information please visit www.naturalsciences.be/fr/museum/exhibitions-view/239/394/390

Press officer (please do not publish) Donatienne Boland 02 627 41 21 / [email protected]

Press pack December 2017 Ben the Plateosaurus and the 10 th anniversary of the Dinosaur Gallery www.sciencesnaturelles.be It’s party time: Dino Family Day: Sunday 17 December from 10.00 to 18.00

Competition to build LEGO ® brick dinosaurs The company Amazings, which specialises in art and events using the famous Danish building bricks, offers children the chance to unleash their creativity and build a realistic dinosaur or one straight out of their imagination from the bricks provided. The winner will receive a LEGO® construction kit representing Ben in what was his “natural environment” with as a bonus… a modern-day palaeontologist also to be reconstructed! The kit comprises almost 300 pieces (format: 12x26x15cm) and costs €50. The 500 sets will be on sale in the Museum (subject to availability) on 17 December only. Reserve your kit now at www.dinoben.be.

Palaeontology displays The Belgian Palaeontology Association will stage a number of events for children and adults: - Excavations in the sand – the children will be able to keep the fossils they find! - Plateoquiz to test visitors’ knowledge of Ben the Plateosaurus. The winner will take home a small fossil. - Taxonomy or how to recognise and classify fossils.

PaleoLAB The palaeontology lab opens its doors to young visitors aged 5 to12 accompanied by an adult. An opportunity to enter the realm of palaeontology and experience different aspects of the work: assemble a life-size stegosaurus, unearth real fossils, handle and discover how a cast is made, etc. Open from 10.30 to 12.00 and from 13.00 to 17.00.

Dinotattoos A non-permanent dinosaur tattoo just like the real thing…

Kids Days with the Jane Goodall Institute As on every 3 rd Sunday in the month, as part of the MONKEYS exhibition , come and meet volunteers from the Jane Goodall Institute Belgium. - The Jane Goodall Institute meets the public: from 10.00 to 18.00, find out about the Jane Goodall Institute, its mission, its conservation work with chimpanzees on the ground and how you can make a difference to these animals from Belgium. Take part in our quiz and become unbeatable on the subject! - Inside the skin of the great apes! Workshop for children (8-12 years): have you ever imagined what it would be like to grow up in the tropical forest? To swing from branch to branch? To have to learn to live with other apes and face the dangers of the forest? Join us for an interactive workshop where you will live inside the skin of a bonobo, a chimpanzee, a gorilla or an orangutan. In French from 15.45 to 17.15 (in Dutch from 14.00 to 15.30), registration at the Jane Goodall Institute stand on the day.

Visitor information Sunday 17 December from 10.00 to 18.00 Free events in the Minerals Room and Dinosaur Gallery Museum entry: normal charges apply

December 2017: the dinosaurs go into town! An event made possible thanks to various partners

Press pack December 2017 Ben the Plateosaurus and the 10 th anniversary of the Dinosaur Gallery www.sciencesnaturelles.be The Dinosaur Gallery in the Museum of Natural Sciences is the largest in Europe. It is also among the CNN global top 10. It is an important cultural and tourist attraction for the Region, which is well aware of the fact. It has given its support from the outset and is also a partner in the acquisition of Ben.

Now at the end of the year, the whole of Brussels is celebrating its dinosaurs!

To mark the occasion, after 65 million years, the T-rexes are taking a short trip to Belgian soil at the invitation of the Museum and visit.brussels. The famous T-rex Tuesdays followed by more than 500,000 fans on YouTube and Facebook have added Brussels to their travelogue and made a two-part film about the city.

Through the amused eyes of these two visitors, adults and children can thus discover the main tourist attractions for families in this city which for a few days became Europe’s dinosaur capital! The pleasure of discovering all the city’s different facets almost made our T-rexes forget the purpose of their journey! But they then went on to wish the Gallery happy birthday and warmly welcomed their new friend, Ben!

Tuesday videos:

https://youtu.be/sRIKg3dXhJM https://youtu.be/j650exJZTts

But our dinosaurs did not stop there! Together with their fellows, they invaded the pages of a well-known free newspaper, leaving their footprints in the middle of the articles. And hungry after their journey, they even threatened to eat the Atomium as evidenced by the posters () which are creating a buzz in underground stations.

This campaign could not have happened without the involvement of our partners, visit.brussels, the Atomium which allowed us to use its logo, and the Metro newspaper, to which we extend our grateful thanks.

A word from the Swiss Embassy in Belgium

Press pack December 2017 Ben the Plateosaurus and the 10 th anniversary of the Dinosaur Gallery www.sciencesnaturelles.be

The arrival of the plateosaurus Ben in Brussels: a fine example of the excellent scientific cooperation between Switzerland and Belgium

The major scientific discoveries and achievements thrive on international cooperation. Swiss policy in this area is characterised by the systematic encouragement of direct collaboration between Swiss and foreign research institutions and academics. Within such partnerships, the Swiss scientists are able to forge important links with their peers abroad.

Scientific collaboration between Switzerland and Belgium is supported principally by the European Union’s framework programmes for research. Research scientists from both countries are at present cooperating on more than 330 research projects under the current programme Horizon 2020 . 26 projects are coordinated by Belgian scientists and 16 by Swiss scientists. The Swiss National Fund for Scientific Research (FNS) works closely with its two sister agencies responsible for research funding: Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek - Vlaanderen (FWO) and the Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research (FNRS). This collaboration enables the removal of the administrative obstacles to direct collaboration, facilitates the movement of research scientists, encourages the establishment of hubs of excellence and supports the creation of new research channels.

Cooperation between Swiss and Belgian scientists is vast, excellent and varied. Sometimes it produces results that can quite simply be described as extraordinary: a little earlier this year, teams from the Universities of Geneva and Liège together discovered a system of seven new planets potentially capable of supporting life in one form or another outside our solar system. This discovery led to a Belgian astronomer, Michaël Gillon, from the University of Liège receiving from the President of the Swiss Confederation, Doris Leuthard, the most prestigious scientific prize awarded in Switzerland, namely the Balzan Prize, worth 650,000 euros. The winner of the Balzan Prize was commended for “his innovative and fruitful research into planets around nearby stars, an important step on the way towards finding signs of life outside our solar system”.

Cooperation between the Frick Dinosaur Museum (canton of Aargau) and the Brussels Museum of Natural Sciences is not so different from that between Swiss and Belgian astronomers. In fact, the discovery of the Frick plateosaurus enables us to put into context some of the history of our own planet and gain a better understanding of the origin and development of life on Earth. 210 million years ago, the region that is now the most densely populated in Switzerland, namely the plain between Bern, Basel and Zurich, had a tropical climate. This plain is bounded on the north-west by the Jura and on the south by the Alps. In the Late Triassic period, the region was

Press pack December 2017 Ben the Plateosaurus and the 10 th anniversary of the Dinosaur Gallery www.sciencesnaturelles.be marshy and had a number of large rivers. In short, it was a landscape ideally suited to Ben and his fellow dinosaurs. This plain, more precisely the Frick paleontological site discovered in 1962 and recognised today as one of the most important sites for dinosaur finds in Europe, is where some fifty dinosaur skeletons in various stages of completeness have been unearthed during a number of excavation programmes conducted since 1976 in this clay pit in the Upper Triassic geological layer.

Palaeontology is highly specialised scientific discipline which, in Switzerland at least, has only a handful of research scientists, mainly at the University of Zurich’s Palaeontology Institute, but also at the Universities of Basel, Bern, Fribourg, Geneva and Lausanne. This means that in the field of palaeontology, major programmes of international cooperation are rare. In this context, the partnership between Belgium and Switzerland and the journey taken by Ben, the dinosaur from Frick who will end his last days in Brussels, are all the more worthy of interest and admiration, in view of the tireless efforts of the different teams in both countries who have enabled the successful completion of this amazing project involving cooperation between Belgium and Switzerland at scientific and museum level.

Photo of Stan: the T. rex in the Dinosaur Gallery

Press pack December 2017 Ben the Plateosaurus and the 10 th anniversary of the Dinosaur Gallery www.sciencesnaturelles.be

Stan - © 2017 – Axel Ruhomaully for Meta-Morphosis Photograph on aluminium, 2017

Meta-Morphosis is a Belgian association specialising in the preservation of the memory of places and dissemination of human achievement through art. Its approach uses both different types of artistic expression (painting, photography, street art, music, gastronomy, etc.) and all types of media (books, exhibitions, virtual visits documentaries, etc.). The aim is to use the heritage around us to raise awareness of societal topics and as a tool of cultural diplomacy. In partnership with museums in Belgium and abroad, Meta-Morphosis photographs items in museum collections and enables them to be seen in a different light...

According to Franck Depaifve, co-founder of Meta-Morphosis, “Stan’s American origin makes him an original ambassador between Belgium and the United States”. Axel Ruhomaully, co-founder of Meta-Morphosis and photographer of the work shown, was impressed by the quality and size of the skeleton which gives it an extraordinary visual power.

The photos are for sale on the Cité Mécanique website (www.cite-mecanique.com) and in art galleries. The proceeds are used to finance the Meta-Morphosis memory preservation projects and some of the proceeds go back to the museums from which the items photographed come.

The non-profit organisation Meta-Morphosis, Zor.com and Canon are pleased to donate this print to the Belgian Royal Institute for Natural Sciences.

Contact: [email protected]

Press pack December 2017 Ben the Plateosaurus and the 10 th anniversary of the Dinosaur Gallery www.sciencesnaturelles.be