Saudi Arabia: Enjoy a day with the dinosaurs

From Saudi Gazette:  Enjoy a day with the dinosaurs

 

 

Dinosaurs roamed the world millions of years back and has fascinated man ever since he found the first fossil. In fact, they have led to the development of a whole new school of study.

This summer, the Saudi Aramco cultural program organized a “Dinosaur world” for children and adults alike. The place provides abundant knowledge and entertainment under one roof.

The entrance of the “Dinosaur world” is dramatic, people enter through a dinosaur’s ferocious, teeth-sticking mouth. Visitors are then surrounded by larger-than-life animatrpnics dinosaurs on all sides with a handmade, makeshift volcano.

The first model is of the loud and fierce Tyrannosaurus Rex followed by the Triceratops, Stegosaurus, Spinosaures, Maiasaura, and Velociraptor.

Some simple hands-on demonstration of scientific nature are also displayed on the other side of the tent.

The interiors of the “Dinosaur world” takes you into pre-historic times, with its dramatic background music of rustling winds and fierce voice and dim lights.

The impressive models and rare skeletons and animatronics enchanted people especially younger visitors, while educating them on some of the less common but truly giant dinosaurs of the day.

Beside each gigantic model, young volunteers were present to guide and provide additional information about the dinosaurs. For example, how many eggs they laid, how fast they grew, how much they ate, the size and detail of each animal, etc. Now, I’ll shed some light on the different types of dinosaur models exhibited at the “Dinosaur world.” One of the dinosaur’s name was Allosaurus. The name Allosaurus means different lizard. Allosaurus lived around 150 million years ago in the late Jurassic period. It was a carnivorous animal with big, sharp teeth.They were active predators and there is evidence that they attacked the Stegosaurus.

The word Tyrannosaurus rex comes from the Greek words meaning tyrant lizard, while the word ‘rex’ means ‘king’ in Latin.

Tyrannosaurus rex walked on two legs, balancing its huge head with a long and heavy tail that sometimes contained over 40 vertebrae in addition to small arms that were extremely powerful and featured two clawed fingers. Tyrannosaurus rex lived in the late Cretaceous period around 66 million years ago.

Along with Stegosaurus and Iguanodon types of dinosaurs, Tyrannosaurus rex was one of the three famous dinosaurs that inspired the appearance of Godzilla. The Iguanodon dinosaurs were herbivorous.

The children also had a unique opportunity to ride the Triceratops dinosaur with the help of volunteers and parents, and they were surely elated when their parents caught the candid moments on the camera.

Toward the end, there was also a short film documentary showing how the dinosaurs got extinct over a period of time.