Ronald S. Tykoski is the vice president of science and curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Perot Museum of Nature and Science, where he has worked since 2005 (when it was called the Dallas Museum of Natural History). The museum’s latest exhibition, on loan from the American Museum of Natural History, is titled “T. rex: The Ultimate Predator.” It runs through September 22.
The American Museum of Natural History first staged a T. rex exhibit in 1915. Its pose was determined by the physical space of the museum, and it changed over the years. So what did they send you, and how does it reflect our current understanding? When that mount was revealed, it reflected a mindset of these animals as big lizards. It had this tripod kangaroo-like pose, but it was also a constraint of the engineering of mounting this big, heavy skeleton, so they needed to brace it. But in the decades that followed, we started revising our picture of what these animals were like. The exhibit that is now here at the Perot shows Tyrannosaurus rex in a modern light, with the horizontal spine, head out in front, the tail out behind, beautifully balanced on huge back legs.