by 29lab “Savage Ancient Seas: Dinosaurs of the Deep,” recently opened at The Mariners’ Museum and features “sea monsters” on a scale one would expect only Hollywood could conjure.
This fossil of the Archelon is part of the Savage Ancient Seas: Dinosaurs of the Deep exhibition that runs through Jan. 1, 2015 at The Mariners’ Museum.
The exhibition includes “the T-Rex of the ocean,” the 45-foot-long Tylosaurus, a serpentine reptile with two rows of sharp teeth; the 50-foot-long, 50-ton Megalodon and the fanged, vicious, 12-foot-long Xiphactinus.
Many are familiar with the story of the Tyrannosaurus, Brontosaurus and the like. Savage Ancient Seas explores their undersea counterparts, which populated the oceans at the same time dinosaurs roamed the earth.
Most of the species in the exhibition disappeared from the earth at the end of the Cretaceous period, along with the dinosaurs.
“These animals, they’re just as impressive as dinosaurs,” said Mike Triebold, the paleontologist who created Savage Ancient Seas. “But people are not familiar with them, they didn’t have as good a press agent.”
Triebold began collecting fossils 30 years ago, mounting specimens for museums around the world.
All told, the traveling exhibition from Triebold Paleontology includes more than 20 large-scale skeletons and replicas of ancient marine reptiles.
In addition to the likes of the Tylosaurus and Megalodon, the exhibition includes the Coelacanth, a species of fish long thought to be extinct, but rediscovered in the 1930s, and an early form of the penguin called the Paleospheniscus.
Triebold said the exhibition – which is ever-changing – will mark several firsts when it comes to The Mariners’. He said it will feature the two largest sea turtles ever on display together, the Toxochelys and the Archelon – “Each one of these is the size of a luxury car” – as well as the first public showing of Enchodus, a 5-foot fish with two giant teeth in its upper jaw.
The gallery space will include mᴀssive skeletons suspended from the ceiling. There are touch-screen displays and fossil digs, and guests can pose for pH๏τos inside the jaws of a Megalodon.
