An overview of Dinosaur Exhibits part 5: The Royal Ontario Museum

I have held off talking about this museum for a while now, as it has been nearly 15 years since I’ve been there last, and not only have I forgotten a great deal of it but also it has undergone extensive renovation in 2008.  Canada, like the USA, is rich in dinosaur fossil material, and sort of acts like Mongolia to China in terms of fossils-the hotbed of Cretaceous rock. British Colombia brought us the Cambrian explosion in the Burgess Shale, but for dinosaurs, Alberta and Saskatchewan are the real treasure trove. There’s really nothing like them outside of Montana and Wyoming to the south and Mongolia across the Pacific. Lambe, Brown, and the Sternbergs found a gold mine of Cretaceous fossils, one that is still being excavated today. 

Like the southern American West, while a lot of fossils are stored and studied nearby (in this case, the Royal Tyrell Museum in Drumheller near Edmonton), a great deal have made it to the East. While the US fossils were shipped to Chicago, Pittsburg, Washington, New Haven, Philadelphia and Washington DC,  the Canadian fossils were sent to Toronto and Ottawa. The National Canadian Museum of Nature will be covered next in the series, but today we’re looking at the Royal Ontario Museum.

Species That Don't Get Enough Publicity #5: Anchiceratops

Triceratops is my favorite dinosaur. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because it’s both a plant eater and intimidating. Maybe because it’s like a rhino or a bull. Maybe because it can stand up and defeat the greatest monster dinosaur in media.  It’s been my favorite dinosaur for a while, actually, although I’ve grown to know and love the rest of the horned dinosaurs.  Triceratops is by far the best known, but others have appeared in media.  The sister species Torosaurus managed to get a supporting role in Walking With Dinosaurs, while the spiky-frilled Styracosaurus has become second to only Triceratops in popularity due to its unique look and made its film debut in the 1933 Kong movies (albeit the scene was cut from the first).  Pachyrhinosaurus has surprisingly been popular-being a background dinosaur with Styracosaurus in Disney’s Dinosaur, playing a supporting role in documentaries like The Dinosaurs, March of the Dinosaurs, and Jurassic Fight Club, and finally being the star of the movie Walking With Dinosaurs. 

There’s several that have slipped under the radar, but are well known from science books and dinosaur encyclopedias, but have made occasional appearances. Chasmosaurus (or should I say Mojoceratops) was the only dinosaur in When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth. Centrosaurus has appeared in the documentary Dinosaur!, the short Prehistoric Beast, and has been popular in dinosaur art (sometimes as Monoclonius). A lot of the most recent ceratopsians such as Xenoceratops, Diabloceratops, Medusaceratops and so forth are too new to become engrained in media and culture.