T. rex mount at New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science
November 7, 2018
The Sunday after SVP, Brian Engh and I visited the museum in Albuquerque. I was quite taken with the mounted T. rex. It’s waaaay more interesting and dynamic than any other T. rex mount I’ve seen. It even beats the “Rockette rex” in Denver (which I really like and need to blog about), by virtue of putting the body and head down at eye level where you can study them up close.
The only thing I don’t like about this mount is that it has the dumb teeth-hanging-out-too-far thing going on. Why the heck people don’t fix that, I have no idea. Like, even if that’s the way the jaws are molded, cut off the excess and glue the crowns back up where they belong. Or fix the friggin’ mold. It’s not like the problem hasn’t been obvious for decades.
On the upside, pretty much everything else about this mount is awesome. Brian and I spent a fair amount of time working through the muscle attachments and thinking about how bulky the animal would have been in life. The answer is “very”.
Pretty cool to think that a fleshier, more aggro version of this was the last thing that many animals ever saw. And by ‘cool’ I mean ‘terrifying’.
Sauropod Vertebra Picture of the Week 
November 7, 2018 at 5:50 pm
Is that Stan’s skull?
November 7, 2018 at 9:34 pm
It’s all Stan! I did some preliminary drawings for this pose when I worked at the NMMNHS—we wanted visitors to be confronted with a T. rex at eye level when they turned the corner into the atrium. But all credit for the dynamism of this mount should go to the team at the Black Hills Institute who cast & assmbled it.
November 8, 2018 at 5:11 pm
Nice. I must’ve seen two or three copies of Stan’s skull between Denver, Morrison, and Colorado Springs. He’s a popular guy!
November 10, 2018 at 8:04 pm
They must have got the idea from Trix. Here’s some of my own pics: https://nielsaurus.blogspot.com/2017/01/recensie-naturalis-t-rex-in-town.html
December 31, 2018 at 3:02 pm
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