Iowa: Putnam Museum prepares for prehistoric invasion

From the Quad City Times: Putnam Museum prepares for prehistoric invasion
Dinosaurs will roam the Putnam Museum in Davenport for four months this spring and summer, including some that will be making their world debut.

"Dinosaurs Unearthed," which opens March 3 and continues through July 8, will include 14 animatronic dinosaurs, two full-size dinosaur skeletons, 22 fossils and a dig pit for children.

Tickets go on sale beginning today.

Kim Findlay, the Putnam's president and CEO, said the exhibit, which will take up 5,000 square feet in the museum's two largest halls, is the same caliber as the Titanic exhibit that drew huge crowds last year to see artifacts from the doomed ship that were brought off the Atlantic Ocean floor.

"As Titanic was closing, I had so many people saying ... ‘What are you going to do now?' As I stood at the podium, I said I was open to suggestions," she said. "Over the years, people have asked me (for this)."

The exhibit's new attractions include a feathered dinosaur, just completed and based on recent fossil finds in China.

"It's up to now as far as current understandings of dinosaurs at this point in time," Findlay said. "That's a bonus, to get to be the first place in the world to see a couple of these dinosaurs."

Jennifer Chow, the business development manager for the British Columbia-based company that owns the dinosaur exhibit, said that since it began in 2009, it has visited museums in Hawaii, San Antonio, Dallas and Berkeley, Calif.

"It's bringing alive the story," she said in a telephone interview. "What they'll see is the dig trap and one of the quarries and how they discovered the dinosaurs and how the discovery affected the dinosaurs that they found."

The animatronics used in the exhibit - which includes one that can be controlled by visitors - use new motorized technology.

"You'll see a lot smoother movements," she said. "Everything was designed in North America, and if you look at the dinosaurs, they are hand-built and painted and checked by a paleontologist."

Findlay said many educational and family-friendly activities will go along with the exhibit, including a "Supersaurus Sleepover" one night at the museum.

"Unearthed" is meant for a greater range of ages than Titanic, she said.

"While I was honestly surprised by the number of children who came to and enjoyed and knew a lot about the Titanic, I thought it was going to be a lot more adult-based visitation audience," she said. "This one, obviously, is just made for a family experience."

Findlay said the largest dinosaur in the exhibit, a 39-foot-long Tyrannosaurus rex, will be outdoors in the storytelling garden near the north side of the museum.

"He's going to be the special guest greeter," she said.