Matt’s adventures in the Camarasaurus pit
May 7, 2016
At the Prehistoric Museum in Price, Utah, our host Ken Carpenter invited us to jump right into the Camarasaurus pit and start pulling apart their beautiful specimen. We did. Here is Matt, looking as happy as I’ve ever seen him:
The pit is the central exhibit of the museum’s palaeontology hall. You can look down on its Jurassic scene from the balcony above:
Theres a very nice Stegosaurus and an Allosaurus in pursuit of some kind of ornithopod, but needless to say the star of the show is the dead Camarasaurus that lies on the ground, well associated but partially articulated.
It’s a beautifully undistorted specimen, and we were amazed and delighted when Ken not only gave us permission to hop over the barrier and get closer to it, but even to move the elements around to better measure and photograph them. We spent the morning with the skeleton, concentrating on four anterior cervicals, and could happily have spent much, much longer.
A shot across the room at ground level:
Further bulletins as and when we find time to post. Can’t write more now, we’re off to the big wall of awesome at Dinosaur National Monument!
Sauropod Vertebra Picture of the Week 
May 7, 2016 at 3:02 pm
Boys and their toys. The ultimate sandbox. Really wish I were with you guys. I really, really like that stegosaur mount.
May 7, 2016 at 10:41 pm
*Camptosaurus (I’m guessing)
May 8, 2016 at 2:29 am
That really is a nice Stegosaurus mount. Very dynamic! I like the “in-situ” Camarasaurus as well!
May 8, 2016 at 6:49 pm
Some people have all the fun. The highlight of my month will be a visit to Oxford, while you get to road trip around america. That said, I can’t blame you, its a fantastic display.
May 9, 2016 at 3:10 am
You are quite right that this is an outrageous privilege. You might feel better to know that I have never done this before and will very possibly never do it again — it’s literally a once-in-a-lifetime trip.
May 12, 2016 at 8:18 pm
Such a display! I’m kind of jealous of the whole experience… Looks like a ton of museumie-goodness.
May 25, 2023 at 6:47 pm
[…] Prehistoric Museum in Price had added a fair number of new exhibits since Mike and I visited back in 2016, including this nice display on pneumaticity and respiration in birds and other dinos. I was quite […]