Living It Large Children to Excavate

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PALAEONTOLOGY place. Following on from kiosks about blood pressure, growth rates and lung anatomy, the final room houses a trough filled with artificial dinosaur bones for Living it large children to excavate. Although it reminds visitors that fieldwork is the first step in Brian Switek swoons over a New York exhibition that brings understanding prehistoric life, it jars with giant sauropods back to life. the exhibition’s focus. Naturally, reverse-engineering the anatomy and physiology of animals from inosaur halls are the petrified trophy of other sauropods The World’s prehistoric bones involves speculation rooms of natural-history museums. illustrate how these Largest Dinosaurs and informed guesswork. What sauropod But The World’s Largest Dinosaurs — dinosaurs coped with American Museum of hearts looked like must be inferred from Natural History, Dan exhibition curated by Mark Norell of the being so large. How those of birds and crocodiles, and the New York. American Museum of Natural History and could giants such as Until 2 January 2012. physiological functions of the air sacs in Martin Sander of Germany’s University of Diplodocus, for exam- sauropod bones are still debated. Yet this Bonn — is not a classic gallery of old bones. ple, eat enough food given their tiny skulls exhibit is a fitting tribute to how palaeon- The exhibition reconstructs the lives and small, peg-like teeth? The displays show tology has matured. of Apatosaurus, Brachiosaurus and other that, in fact, their heads were well-suited to A century ago, when institutions such as sauropods by showcasing recent research living large. Sauropods bolted down vast the American Museum of Natural History into their biology. Instead of ranks of enor- quantities of food without chewing, and were new, palaeontologists competed to mous skeletons, visitors are greeted with the their long necks allowed them to sample find the biggest and most complete sauro- restored head and neck of Argentinosaurus wide swathes of greenery while standing still. pod skeletons to display. The World’s Larg- (the full 30-metre body would be too big) For how long their meals would have filled est Dinosaurs shows how the study of these and an 18-metre Mamenchisaurus mock- them up is another matter. An interactive animals has become an interdisciplinary up, which stands in a pathway of interactive display invites visitors to select a warm- science that is beginning to answer long- displays. blooded (endothermic) or cold-blooded standing questions about dinosaur biology. Walk along the left flank of the Mamen- (ectothermic) sauropod and choose a diet It is a wonderful celebration of the efforts chisaurus and you will see its ribs expand and of either high- or low-quality plants — such of palaeontologists to put flesh on ancient contract as it breathes. Linger a little longer as cycads or horsetails, respectively. As you bones. ■ SEE NEWS FEATURE P.159 and its flesh peels back ‘feed’ the sauropod, the dinosaur’s virtual to reveal and explain NATURE.COM stomach fills up at different rates and for Brian Switek is a freelance science writer the creature’s internal For more on large varying amounts of time, illustrating how and author of Written in Stone: Evolution, anatomy. vertebrate fossils: diet and physiology interact. the Fossil Record, and Our Place in Nature. Casts and fragments go.nature.com/q49vxo Just one part of the exhibit feels out of e-mail: [email protected] M. GRAFF/UPI/NEWSCOM

The muscles and internal organs of an 18-metre Mamenchisaurus are on show at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.