Allosaurus in Lisbon

A brief post this week because I was in Portugal for a few days earlier in the week spending most of my time in Lisbon. While I was there, I took the opportunity to visit the Musêu Nacional de História Natural which is currently featuring a special exhibition called Allosaurus: One Dinosaur, Two Continents that focusses on the remarkable discovery of Allosaurus sp remains from Upper Jurassic sediments in Portugal.

The main exhibition takes you through the entire palaeontological process of one particular Allosaurus specimen from discovery to preparation. The exhibition is nicely set out with some interactive displays in place and the Allosaurus story is backed up with many other exhibits, some of which I’ve featured below.

What stood out to me, when looking at the original Allosaurus fossils, is how identical they are to those from the Morrison Formation – absolutely incredible. Even the preservation is similar, right down to that very familiar jet black colour that is prevalent amongst Allosaurus specimens from the USA.

There was lots of interesting goodies to see there and there will be more images and posts referring to this exhibition in the future. If you get the opportunity to visit, the exhibition is there until the end of this year so make sure you check it out. Recommended.

The skull of Giganotosaurus



Herrerasaurus

No prizes for guessing whose muzzle this is!



A Stegosaurus dermal plate

A Stegosaurus thagomizer

"Three horned face"

I liked this particular display. It's not very often you get the chance to compare Velociraptor, Dromaeosaurus and Deinonychus all at the same time.