Dinosaur Voices: Words Behind the Exhibit

Beyond the Giant Skeleton

1Welcome to the dinosaur gallery. Before you look up at the towering skeleton, examine the small footprint beside it. A fossil is a preserved remain or trace of an ancient organism. Bones are fossils, but tracks can be fossils too. Paleontologists, scientists who study ancient life through fossils, investigate both kinds of clues. Even a footprint can help them ask questions about how an animal moved.

2The skeleton ahead is a reconstruction, not a complete skeleton discovered in this exact pose. To reconstruct the animal, the exhibit team combined preserved bones with replacement parts shaped using evidence from related animals. Some replacement parts are casts: copies made in molds. A small diagram beside the display identifies which pieces are original fossils and which are copies.

3Now compare the skeleton’s feet with the fossil track. Scientists make an inference when they reach a conclusion by combining evidence with what they already know. For example, a series of tracks may suggest the direction an animal traveled. A hypothesis goes further by proposing an explanation that can be tested against evidence. Finding more tracks might support that explanation or require scientists to revise it.

4At the next stop, notice the teeth. An herbivore eats plants; a carnivore eats other animals. Tooth shape can provide evidence about diet, although scientists consider other clues as well. An adaptation is an inherited feature that helps organisms survive or reproduce in their environment. Such features develop in populations over many generations. An animal does not grow a useful new feature simply because it needs one.

5The final panel uses the word extinct, meaning that no living members of a group remain. Non-avian dinosaurs—the dinosaurs other than birds—are extinct, while birds are living dinosaurs. That distinction makes precise language important. As you leave, consider which statements describe direct observations and which offer interpretations. The gallery presents ancient life through physical clues, careful comparisons, and explanations that can change when new evidence appears.