Beginning Nov. 19, the Bruce Museum will delve into this region’s ancient past in the new exhibition “Last Days of Pangea: In the Footsteps of Dinosaurs.” The show highlights remarkable fossil discoveries from the Connecticut Valley and beyond.
Two hundred million years ago, early dinosaurs lived alongside bizarre reptiles on the supercontinent Pangea. These denizens of “Triassic Park” included armored crocodile relatives, long-necked reptiles that swam like frogs, and a unique lizard-like animal that glided on a membrane supported by outstretched ribs. They wandered the region, leaving footprints along the muddy lakeshores and skeletons in the sandy floodplains. Unbeknownst to these creatures, the age of Pangea would soon come to a violent end: The Earth itself split open along a seam that ran through the center of Connecticut, unleashing a massive flood of lava that triggered extinctions throughout the globe. This is when the Triassic Period gave way to the Jurassic Period and dinosaurs rose from humble beginnings as relatively small creatures to launch a 135-million-year reign as rulers of the ecosystem.
This exhibition explores the geological record of the sundering of Pangea and showcases fossils ranging from tiny oddballs to ferocious predators. Visitors will encounter a life-size cast of Postosuchus, a 13-foot long bipedal relative of modern crocodiles that kept early dinosaurs off the top of the food chain, and Coelophysis, a primitive dinosaur once believed to have eaten its own young. Fleshed out life reconstructions of the eight species created for this exhibition, including the gliding Icarosaurus and armored Stegomus, will allow visitors to experience these animals in living color. Historic footprints collected throughout the Connecticut Valley in the 1800s will also be on view, including those of our Connecticut state fossil, the dinosaur track Eubrontes.
The show will be on view through July 16, 2017.
