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Dinosaur Journey Museum – Fruita

Hosted by the Museum of Western Colorado, Dinosaur Journey Museum features hands-on, interactive exhibits. See real fossils, cast skeletons and robotic reconstructions of various dinosaurs. It’s located in Fruita, which is part of the Dinosaur Diamond, a scenic driving tour of the Southwest.

One of the newest exhibits is a large Triceratops skull, possibly one of the largest ever found. There’s also a working laboratory where fossils are prepared for display, a simulated earthquake ride and a “quarry site” where kids can uncover actual dinosaur bones.

Address: 550 Jurassic Court, Fruita , CO

Phone: 970-858-7282

Season: Year round

Website: museumofwesternco.com/dinosaur-journey

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Museum of Western Colorado: Dinosaur Journey Museum

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Most Recent: Reviews ordered by most recent publish date in descending order.

Detailed Reviews: Reviews ordered by recency and descriptiveness of user-identified themes such as wait time, length of visit, general tips, and location information.

Museum of Western Colorado: Dinosaur Journey Museum - All You Need to Know BEFORE You Go (2024)

Allosaurus Roar

Dinosaur Museum Reviews!

Dinosaur Journey Museum of Western Colorado, Fruita, CO

The Dinosaur Journey Museum of Western Colorado is located in Fruita, a town at the base of the spectacular Colorado National Monument, about 20 miles or so east of the Utah border.  While not a terribly large museum, it is a great place to visit (especially for kids) and see a variety of dinosaurs and other prehistoric fossils.

The trip from Denver to Grand Junction, CO on I-70 is one of the most beautiful drives on America’s interstate highway system.   From the breathtaking cliffs of the Rocky Mountains to the gorgeous canyons cut from the Colorado River near Glenwood Springs, this stretch of area is surely among the most visually stunning in the United States.  Once in the Grand Junction/Fruita area, the spectacular Colorado National Monument looms above.  Overlooks along the road at the top of the monument allow visitors to enjoy the rock formations for many miles, and all the way down to the cities of Grand Junction and Fruita below, where dinosaur hunters have worked for nearly 125 years, finding some of the largest ( Brachiosaurus & Apatosaurus ) and smallest ( Fruitadens ) dinosaurs yet discovered.

website: Dinosaur Journey Museum of Western Colorado

Dinosaurs have been a part of the Fruita community for almost 120 years.  Around the turn of the 20th century, Elmer Riggs of the Field Museum in Chicago first described the dinosaur Brachiosaurus from a specimen discovered about five miles from the future site of the Dinosaur Journey Museum (DJM).  He also found a large Apatosaurus (formerly Brontosaurus ) less than a mile from the museum, in an area now referred to as “Dinosaur Hill.”  Plenty of dinosaur hunters have continued to work in the area, and other dinosaurs have been discovered since, including one of the smallest herbivorous dinosaurs.

At DJM, my children were excited as soon as we turned into the parking lot off of Jurassic Ct., all because of the colorful museum van decorated to resemble a Triceratops  that was parked in front of the building.  Once inside, dinosaurs of all shapes and sizes dominate the large room that makes up the bulk of the display area.  Several animatronic dinosaurs immediately drew our attention; my younger son was enthralled with a huge Utahraptor that stands near the entrance with the head and neck of a large sauropod dinosaur in its bloody mouth.  It’s a far cry from the “Barney” type of display that we sometimes see that can occasionally make huge meat-eating dinosaurs look almost cuddly.  At DJM, there are several animatronic dinosaurs, and they were very popular, particularly with the elementary-school crowd.  Look out for the animatronic dinosaur that has a surprise for visitors!

While the animatronics are fun, there are quite a few real dinosaur fossils in the museum, including a beautiful Allosaurus .  Like many of the exhibits in the DJM, the Allosaurus comes from the Late Jurassic time period.  Others from this time on display include a flock of Rhamphorhynchus, a relatively small pterosaur with sharp needle-like teeth, and a great display of a cast skeleton of Stegosaurus .

The Stegosaurus is particularly appealing, posed in a modern style with the tail up and the front legs lifted slightly off the ground.  There is no agreement on whether or not Stegosaurus could or regularly did rear up on its hind legs in order to eat tall plants and leaves.  The Houston Museum of Natural Science displays one fully rearing on its hind legs.  While it is amazing to see, I also like the display at DJM, which suggests that the animal might be able to rear up…a position many paleontologists would agree with–at least until more evidence is collected and analyzed.

A number of cast skeletons can be found around the Dinosaur Journey Museum.  The well-known juvenile Camarasaurus that was found at Dinosaur National Monument in Utah (and is on display at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh) hangs from a wall inside, and an adult Camarasaurus stands over visitors near the entrance to the museum.  One of my favorites at DJM is the ankylosaur Mymoorapelta , a medium-sized tank-like dinosaur that lived in western Colorado during the Late Jurassic.  Other dinosaurs on display include a cast of the popular Velociraptor, and a well-done display of the Jurassic herbivore Camptosaurus.  Additionally, throughout the museum are individual skulls and femurs of other dinosaurs.  Some of the skulls include Triceratops , Pachyrhinosaurus , Gastonia , Edmontosaurus, and a recently recognized species of Allosaurus.

One nice feature of the museum is the terrific job they do with educational material.  Many of the displays have the standard placards you might find in any dinosaur museum, but almost all of them at DJM have quite a bit of additional reading material that describes each dinosaur, how and where they lived, and some interesting facts about them.  There are also some nice educational tools–my sons particularly enjoy the big red cube that shows the size of various dinosaur hearts.

A highlight of our trips to the DJM is that each time we have visited, there has been a terrific national touring exhibition on display.  The first time we went it was an exhibit called “Super Crocs” and featured the giant Cretaceous alligator relative Deinosuchus .  The second time, the touring display featured the giant Paleocene snake Titanoboa , the largest snake ever discovered.   The huge constrictor from Central America lived shortly after the demise of the dinosaurs, around 58 to 60 million years ago.  Both of these displays were very popular at the museum, and my sons really liked each of them, even though we had seen the Titanoboa display previously at another museum.

Before we could leave, we had to see one of the more recent dinosaur discoveries from the Fruita area, the tiny heterodontosaurid dinosaur Fruitadens .  One of the tiniest dinosaurs discovered from the Jurassic period, an adult Fruitadens was only about two feet long and weighed just over a pound.  Heterodontosaurids (meaning “different toothed lizard”) were small dinosaurs that had teeth designed for chewing, an evolutionary advantage that allowed them to eat a wider variety of plants (and possibly animals) than other herbivorous dinosaurs.  The Fruitadens fossils are located in the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, but at DJM there is a nice display featuring a life-size recreation of this interesting little fellow.

IF I DON’T LIKE DINOSAURS, WILL I ENJOY MY VISIT?

Probably not so much.  This museum is one of several among the Museums of Western Colorado, and it is focused almost entirely on dinosaurs and other prehistoric life.  The good news: the Fruita/Grand Junction area is full of things to do, particularly if you like hiking, camping and other outdoor activities.  The terrific Colorado National Monument is only a couple minutes from the museum’s front door, and I highly recommend a trip through the park–the views are fantastic.

WHAT COULD BE BETTER?

There are a surprising number of full skeletal displays at the DJM, even if most of them are casts rather than real fossils.  The educational elements in place at the museum are well above average, and there are fun surprises throughout the museum.  I would have liked to see a little more about the Riggs fossils–perhaps more cast bones or even a cast skeleton of one of the large dinosaurs.  While Fruitadens is a great little ambassador for the area for dinosaur enthusiasts, Brachiosaurus and Apatosaurus are two of the most iconic dinosaurs, and having a large cast of one of them would be really spectacular for this nice museum.  Nevertheless, the museum does a great job with the resources it has and is a fun place to visit.

DID MY CHILDREN ENJOY THEIR VISIT?  

We have been to the DJM twice now, and both times my children enjoyed it quite a bit.  One of the animatronic dinosaurs has been a favorite of my younger son since he first saw it, and he was thrilled to get to visit it again.   My older son enjoyed the dinosaur tracks displays and the Fruitadens exhibit, but also the touring exhibitions which were very well done.  Both boys spent some time on the 2nd floor looking through the window of the working paleontology lab where they could watch volunteers working on various fossils.  There is a nice little play area for small children which includes some climbing equipment and dinosaur toys and books.  My sons didn’t spend much time there, but it was quite popular with younger children.  If your child wants an authentic dinosaur experience, the DJM has a series of “Dig for a day” programs in the summer for all ages to explore a working paleontology site in the area–check their website for details before your visit.

HOW MUCH TIME SHOULD I PLAN TO SPEND THERE?

For most people, an hour should be plenty of time to see all the fossils and exhibits.  If you have young children who want to play in the dig pit and such, I would maybe plan for 90 minutes.

The Dinosaur Journey Museum is a really nice place to visit, particularly if you have children who are dinosaur enthusiasts.  My sons have been fortunate to visit a lot of dinosaur museums yet they always remember their visits to this museum in Fruita.  Although not terribly well known, this museum is one of the top 25 places to see prehistoric fossils in North America and I strongly recommend a visit.

Rating Aspects of the Museum’s Fossil Displays:

N umber of Fossils/Dinosaurs on Display: (6.5 out of 10)

Fossil Displays/Creativity/Visual Layout/Overall Scene: (7.5 out of 10)

Unique/New/Famous/Important Fossils on Display: (5 out of 10)

  Educational Materials/Display Information/Signage: (8.5 out of 10)

Activities/Play Areas for Children: (7 out of 10) 

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Dinosaur Journey

Southwest Colorado

This small museum has a fantastic collection of scary animatronic dinos that snort steam and jerk around, bestial skeletons and interesting multimedia demonstrations. It's a little bit corny at times, but thrilling for the younger members of the party.

550 Jurassic Ct

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970-858-7282

https://​www​.museumofwesternco​.com​/

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Hours of Operation: Monday through Friday 7:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Excluding Municipal Holidays

Location Address : 900 Kiefer Avenue Fruita, CO 81521 Phone: (970) 858-9558 Fax: (970) 858-4952

Mailing Address : 325 E. Aspen Avenue, Suite 155 Fruita, CO 81521

Public Works : After-hours/Emergency calls On Call Phone: (970) 250-7835

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Fruita: The Real “Jurassic Park”

Western Colorado‘s Dinosaur Fossil Fame

By Steve Voynick

In much of the world, the 1993 blockbuster movie “Jurassic Park” and its unending sequels have become synonymous with the word “dinosaur.” But in western Colorado, the word “dinosaur” is better associated with the town of Fruita and its surroundings.

Located ten miles west of the city of Grand Junction and not far from the Utah line, Fruita is a real “Jurassic Park” and a must-see destination for anyone interested in dinosaur paleontology.

An imposing, 20-foot-tall, forest-green dinosaur looming over the town square reflects Fruita’s pride in its paleontological heritage and history. This model, an accurate, life-sized depiction of  Ceratosaurus magnicornis , a  Tyrannosaurus -like predator, is Fruita’s official “town dinosaur.” Along with many other dinosaurs, its fossilized bones were found and excavated only a few miles away.

Showcasing Western Paleontological Remnants

Not to belittle Fruita’s town-square  Ceratosaurus , but other nearby dinosaur-related attractions are far more impressive. Among them are an outstanding dinosaur museum, several paleontological research areas with hiking trails and interpretive signs, historic and active dinosaur-bone quarries, opportunities to accompany paleontologists on dinosaur-fossil digs, and even a national monument that showcases the region’s spectacular geology.

Fruita’s adventure with dinosaurs began in the late 1890s, shortly after a series of remarkable western fossil discoveries, mainly in Colorado and Wyoming, had transformed dinosaur paleontology from an obscure academic pursuit into an exciting and dynamic science with a large public following. These landmark discoveries had all occurred within exposures of the Morrison Formation , the sediments of which were laid down during the Jurassic Period some 160 million years ago.

Much of present-day Colorado was then a flat, low-lying coastal plain with sandy beaches, marshes, and tidal flats at the edge of the warm, shallow Interior Seaway. A tropical climate and profuse vegetation supported a booming population of both herbivorous and carnivorous dinosaurs. Varying sea levels, periodic flooding, and heavy sedimentation combined to quickly bury dinosaur remains in an excellent environment for fossilization.

In relatively recent geologic time, erosion exposed sections of the fossil-rich Morrison Formation. In western Colorado, the Colorado River cut deeply into the sediments to carve out the sprawling Grand Valley, the present site of Grand Junction and Fruita.

More Than Meets the Eye

In some areas, huge, intact, fossilized dinosaur bones protruded from hillsides in plain view. Native Americans flaked the abundant, well-silicified dinosaur bone into tools and points. By 1885, ranchers and sheepherders near Fruita had begun collecting “big bones” to sell as curios to railroad travelers or museums in the East. Several even made bone-hunting a full-time occupation.

But the true significance of Fruita’s profusion of dinosaur fossils went unrecognized until the arrival of a 31-year-old paleontologist named Elmer S. Riggs in 1900. Riggs had studied paleontology at the University of Kansas. By the 1890s, he was an assistant paleontologist at Chicago’s Field Columbian Museum (now The Field Museum) and participated in field expeditions to Wyoming and South Dakota.

After assisting in several major dinosaur-fossil recoveries, Riggs became determined to discover a new fossil field of his own. But rather than just randomly searching, he began instead by writing letters to a dozen communities near Morrison Formation exposures in Colorado and Wyoming, asking if residents knew of any fossilized-bone deposits.

Among those who replied was Dr. S. M. Bradbury, a Grand Junction dentist and president of the Western Colorado Academy of Science. Bradbury reported that dinosaur bones were common near Fruita and that their deposits had never been scientifically investigated.

Intrigued by Bradbury’s letter, Riggs asked The Field Museum to fund an expedition to western Colorado. Hesitant to risk funds on unproven bone fields, the museum directors offered only limited support—if Riggs himself would pay part of the expenses.

Countless Discoveries

Riggs agreed, and in May 1900, a group of residents welcomed him at the

Grand Junction railroad station. Eager to show off their discoveries, they took him on a tour of known fossil sites. Within days, Riggs recovered the fossilized shoulder bones and vertebrae of the large sauropod  Camarasaurus .

His first major discovery came only weeks later southeast of Fruita on a low rocky hill that now bears his name—Riggs Hill, where he excavated the nearly complete skeleton of a  Brachiosaurus , a huge sauropod new to science. Riggs’  Brachiosaurus , 30 feet tall and 80 feet from nose to tail, was then the largest dinosaur ever found. (An articulated, cast-replica mount of this specimen is displayed today at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport.)

Impressed with Riggs’ initial finds, the museum directors approved a return expedition the following year. They increased Riggs funding to $800, still very little for five months of equipping, feeding, and paying excavation crews, then transporting heavy dinosaur fossils by wagon and river raft to railroad freight depots for shipment to Chicago.

But this return expedition nearly ended before it began when a supply raft capsized, dumping its entire load of food and a ton of dry plaster (for encasing fossilized bones) into the Colorado River. Riggs considered calling off the expedition, but his local friends and supporters, including several serious amateur paleontologists, took up a collection to replace the lost food and plaster. During the following months, Riggs repaid their generosity with free lectures on fossil excavation and preservation and other paleontological topics.

In 1901, Riggs recovered the rear two-thirds of a  Brontosaurus  (later  Apatosaurus ) from a site just south of Fruita, now known as Dinosaur Hill. Quarrying the deeply buried bones of this 70-foot-long sauropod from a steep hillside was no easy task. When removing the huge volume of overburden on the steep hillside became impossible, Riggs was not discouraged: He simply hired hardrock miners to tunnel into the hill to recover the bones from the world’s first and only underground “dinosaur mine.”

Giving Birth to Dinosaur Paleopathology

Riggs’  Apatosaurus  skeleton included several ribs that had been broken, but then healed during the dinosaur’s lifetime—a discovery that pioneered the specialized field now known as dinosaur paleopathology.

By September, Riggs had collected six tons of plaster-encased dinosaur bones to ship to Chicago—but couldn’t pay the freight costs. This time his friends persuaded the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad to help out. The railroad shipped the bones free of charge as a gesture to the advancement of science. Several years later, when The Field Museum displayed the spectacular, full skeletal mounts of Riggs’ recoveries, Fruita gained international recognition as one of the world’s leading sources of Jurassic dinosaur fossils.

Riggs’ last year of field work at Fruita was 1903, but his local legacy lived on. In the 1920s, local amateur paleontologists who had learned from Riggs began making their own fossil recoveries. The discoveries of Al Look and Ed Faber attracted scientific interest from several western universities. Then, in 1937, when local fossil collector Ed Hansen found in situ vertebrae above Riggs’ original quarry at Riggs Hill, another local amateur paleontologist, high-school geology teacher Edward Holt, excavated nearly complete, fossilized skeletons of  Stegosaurus ,  Allosaurus , and  Brachiosaurus .

In 1937, Al Look, astutely foreseeing the potential of dinosaur paleontology to future area tourism, suggested preserving Riggs’ original bone quarries. The first step came the following year with well-attended dedication ceremonies at Riggs and Dinosaur hills. The guest of honor was none other than Elmer Riggs himself, then The Field Museum’s curator of paleontology and one of the world’s leading paleontologists.

Another local amateur paleontologist was Grand Junction attorney Ivan Kladder who, during the 1940s, excavated and amassed an extensive, well-cataloged collection of dinosaur fossils.    

Museum Tends to It Origins

Elmer Riggs died in 1963, the same year that the Museum of Western Colorado was established in Grand Junction with dinosaur paleontology as its initial focus. Local amateur paleontologists provided the museum’s first fossil exhibits, including the entire Kladder collection.

Today, the Museum of Western Colorado, while greatly broadening the scope of its exhibits, has not forgotten its paleontological origins. In 2001, the museum opened a new exhibit facility in Fruita named Dinosaur Journey . Only two miles from historic Dinosaur Hill, it is dedicated entirely to dinosaurs and related aspects of paleontology and geology. Near the museum’s entrance stand colorful, near-life-sized models of a platy-spined  Stegosaurus  and a  Ceratosaurus , the latter another tribute to Fruita’s official “town dinosaur.”

Interior galleries display the articulated casts of an 18-foot long  Brachiosaurus  forearm alongside photographic murals of Elmer Riggs and his crews at work in 1900. The largest of Dinosaur Journey’s eight full-skeletal mounts is a 50-foot-long  Camarasaurus ; the smallest is the predator  Othnielosaurus , measuring just six feet from its nose to the tip of its slender tail.

Taking A Dino Journey

Dinosaur Journey also displays robotic dinosaurs that move, roar, and scream. These quarter-, half-, and life-sized models include such familiar genera as  Tyrannosaurus ,  Stegosaurus ,  Triceratops , and  Apatosaurus . Their realistic exteriors conceal interior aluminum frames, electric motors, and cam-operated shafts that impart motion to jaws, necks, forearms, and tails. A particularly dramatic model depicts  Utahraptor , an 8-foot-tall, 20-foot-long “super-slasher” predator devouring the neck of a sauropod.

The roars and screams that echo throughout the museum are not random conceptions of dinosaur sounds. Drawing upon modern comparative anatomy and known dinosaur jawbone and neck-bone structures, paleontologists have modeled dinosaur vocal cords. The robotic dinosaurs’ roars and shrieks, specific to particular dinosaur genera, are based on sounds that actual dinosaur vocal cords would likely have made.

Locally recovered fossils are prepared for study and display in Dinosaur Journey’s working paleontological laboratory. The lab is staffed by professional paleontologists and volunteers who, time permitting, provide guided museum tours. Viewing windows enable the public to observe laboratory technicians working on locally recovered fossils.

One of the museum’s geology-related displays is fittingly called “Earthquake!!!” When visitors step onto a special floor section and press a button, they experience the simulated, but frighteningly strong, earth movements that would accompany a 5.3-magnitude temblor.

Making the Most of the Trip

Dinosaur Journey also distributes brochures and maps for the nearby field attractions—Dinosaur Hill, Riggs Hill, the Fruita Paleontological Area, and the Trail through Time. Dinosaur Hill, a few minutes south of Dinosaur Journey on Colorado Route 340, has a one-mile-long loop trail with interpretive signs. The hill’s summit offers panoramic views of Fruita, the Colorado River, the Grand Valley, and the canyons and spires of nearby Colorado National Monument. The trail passes the portal of the historic underground “dinosaur mine,” where a bronze plaque commemorates Elmer Riggs’ fossil recoveries 118 years ago.

In 1991, paleontologists reopened this underground mine where Riggs had recovered his  Apatosaurus  specimen—and recovered three  Apatosaurus  tail vertebrae that Riggs had missed.

Just a few miles from Dinosaur Hill is the Fruita Paleontological Area, 360 acres of deeply eroded badlands where fossils represent a greater diversity of Jurassic life than any other known place on Earth. Quarries here have yielded skeletons of such plant-eating giants as Apatosaurus ,  Camarasaurus , and  Stegosaurus ; the carnivore  Ceratasaurus , and the two very small dinosaurs  Echinodon and Fruitadens . A half-mile-long loop trail, marked by 20 detailed, illustrated, geological and paleontological interpretive signs, passes two historic dinosaur quarries, a dinosaur-track site, and a dinosaur-eggshell dig.

The Fruita Paleontological Area is also home to brightly colored collared lizards, some nearly a foot long. Males have blue-green spots and stripes, yellow-brown heads, sunflower-yellow forefeet and eyelids, and black collars. Although not descended from dinosaurs, collared lizards have a decidedly prehistoric look that adds to the interest of this paleontological area.

Riggs Hill, seven miles east of Fruita, has a three-quarter mile-long trail with interpretive signage that passes Riggs’ original  Brachiosauru s quarry, now marked with a commemorative bronze plaque.

Modern-Day Discoveries

Fossil discoveries and excavations in the Fruita area continue today. In 1981, paleontologists Pete Mygatt and John Moore discovered an extraordinarily rich fossil deposit in Rabbit Valley 17 miles west of Fruita at Exit 2 on I-70. Today, this deposit is the Mygatt-Moore Quarry, a part of the Rabbit Valley Natural Research Area, which is jointly managed by the Museum of Western Colorado and the Bureau of Land Management. The quarry’s 1.5-mile-long Trail through Time features 21 interpretive geological and paleontological signs, and places where visitors can touch in situ fossilized dinosaur bones.

In late Jurassic time, Rabbit Valley was a silty watering hole where periodic

flooding created the conditions necessary for bone fossilization. The Mygatt-Moore Quarry has yielded more than 3,000 dinosaur bones, among them the nearly complete skeletons of the herbivores Apatosaurus  and  Camarasaurus , the carnivore  Allosauru s, and the recently discovered armored herbivore  Mymoorapelta  (named after the quarry).

Just five miles south of Fruita, Colorado National Monument offers fascinating perspectives on the region’s dramatic geology. The rock exposures in this 36-square-mile tract of sheer-walled canyons, towering monoliths, and red sandstone cliffs represent a billion years of geologic time from the late Precambrian to the early Cenozoic eras. Views to the north and east across the Grand Valley and the Colorado River reveal the enormous extent of the erosion that exposed Fruita’s treasure trove of fossilized dinosaur bones.

Popular half-day, one-day, and five-day fossil digs at the Mygatt-Moore Quarry are open to the public on a fee basis. Scheduled by Dinosaur Journey throughout the summer months, these digs include transportation from the museum to the quarry, lunch, a special tour of the museum’s fossil-preparation laboratory, and hands-on, excavation work with instruction from professional paleontologists.

For a change of pace from the many paleontological attractions, visitors should consider the Two Rivers Winery on Colorado Route 340. Just a few miles from Riggs Hill and in the shadow of Colorado National Monument’s red cliffs, the Two Rivers tasting room offers an outstanding selection of varietal wines produced from locally grown grapes. It’s a fine place to contemplate the rich paleontological heritage of Fruita’s “Jurassic Park.”

Fruita is located just off In terstate 70 at Exit 19, 10 miles west of Grand Junction, and 19 miles east of the Utah line. Dinosaur Journey is a half-mile south of Fruita on aptly named Jurassic Court. The museum is open daily; hours vary seasonally. For further information, contact Dinosaur Journey at 970-858-7282 or visit  www.dinosaurjourney.org .

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Who We Are: Meet Julia McHugh, Dinosaur Journey Museum’s new curator of paleontology

Local Local | Jul 28, 2014

Editor’s note: Who We Are features men and women embodying Grand Valley’s unique spirit. Send nominations to [email protected] .

When Julia McHugh took over Dinosaur Journey Museum ’s open curator of paleontology position June 23, she hit the ground running — working in the field all but a handful of days, which culminated with the extraction of 6-foot-7-inch long, 2,800-pound Apatosaurus femur from the Mygatt-Moore quarry last week . The site, located just a few miles from the Colorado/Utah border, is home to a variety of prehistoric fossils, both dinosaur and aquatic.

“I’m having a blast,” she said. “This is a great area for paleontology. There’s so much right outside.”

McHugh took over from longtime curator, John Foster, who recently moved on to work for the Museum of Moab .

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“She’s really good,” Foster said of McHugh. “She definitely bonded quickly with the volunteers. I’m looking forward to working with [Dinosaur Journey] on future projects.”

Before moving to Grand Junction, McHugh worked for Oklahoma State University’s Center for Health Sciences in the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology. She was the senior research assistant for the anatomy and vertebrate paleontology track.

“I assisted in faculty research labs for vertebrate paleontology, and managed the volunteer program and public outreach,” McHugh said.

While in Oklahoma, McHugh also worked as a research associate with Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History . She received her Ph.D. in 2012 from University of Iowa’s Department of Geoscience and previously studied at both Idaho State University and Hanover College in Indiana.

“This job [at Dinosaur Journey] was written like it was made just for me,” McHugh said. “Right now I‘m taking stock, learning the lay of the land and status of the museum. Then I’m coming up with a vision for the next 10, 20 and 50 years. You always have to be moving forward.”

One long-term project McHugh would love to accomplish is a joint expansion on Dinosaur Journey’s Fruita site with The John McConnell Math & Science Center of Western Colorado , which is currently located in Grand Junction.

“It would be a math and science campus for [grades] K-12,” she explained, with a shared education building. “We’re still in negotiations with the City of Fruita. Nothing is set in stone at this point.”

McHugh also traces her first dinosaur dig to Mesa County in 1997.

“It was a dig in Wyoming that was done through Dinamation International, the company that was here and built this building,” she said.

According to McHugh, her interest in geology and paleontology is long-standing, originally stemming from a childhood passion for rocks.

“Mom has a photo of me at 18 months, sitting in a flower bed in a dress looking at scoria. I got into fossils at age 13.

“My favorite dinosaurs are the same ones I liked as a kid,” she added. “Apatosaurus is my favorite herbivore and Allosaurus is my favorite predator. They’re both prevalent in Grand Junction.”

Besides sharing her passion for paleontology through tours, volunteer-based dinosaur digs and community outreach, McHugh will also be teaching classes (one each semester) at Grand Junction’s Colorado Mesa University . This fall she will instruct an Introduction to Geology class; then in spring she’ll teach an Introduction to Paleontology class.

When McHugh isn’t working, she loves to travel and dabble in photography, documenting her trips across the world.

For more information about Dinosaur Journey Museum, visit http://www.museumofwesternco.com/visit/dinosaur-journey .

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Teen Rex Discovery Roars into the Denver Museum of Nature & Science

This juvenile t. rex fossil was found by children.

This story begins in the Badlands near Marmarth, North Dakota. Up in this barren otherworldly landscape, a trio of young adventurers, eight-year-old Liam and 11-year-old Jessin, and their 10-year-old cousin Kaiden Madsen, were on a fossil-hunting adventure when they came across large bones weathering out of a sedimentary rock formation. The fossil was collected on land managed by the Bureau of Land Management under permit ND2023-0084.  

After snapping a few photos, the kids reached out to their father’s high-school classmate, Denver Museum of Nature & Science paleontologist Dr. Tyler Lyson, a hometown hero from Marmarth, North Dakota. Growing up in the town with a population of just 100 people, Tyler had started looking for dinosaurs bones in the area when he was just a kid.

Dr. Tyler Lyson with Jessin , 12, and Liam, 9, Fisher and their cousin Kaiden Madsen, 11 in North Dakota's Badlands in Summer of 2023. (Photo/Rick Wicker)

Liam and Jessin loved Tyler so much that they even went so far as to dress up as him on Halloween! So, when the kids sent the photos of the dinosaur bone to Tyler, you can imagine that they were over the moon when he told them they had found a dinosaur fossil. While it wasn't initially clear what dinosaur the boys had found, Tyler made plans to come the next summer to dig up the fossil with the brothers, and that's when they found it was actually the remains of an extremely rare juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex !

Related story: Dinosaur-obsessed? Visit our Prehistoric Journey exhibition!

The Call to the Hometown Paleontologist

Kaiden Madsen, Tyler Lyson and Jessin Fisher after realizing the dinosaur the kids found belonged to a Tyrannosaurus rex ! (Photo/Natalie Toth)

The call to Dr. Tyler Lyson was met with enthusiasm and expertise, setting the stage for a remarkable collaboration between the young adventurers and the seasoned scientist. Looking at photos of the fossil, Dr. Lyson could tell that it was a dinosaur bone, but it wasn’t until later in the field when he and his team discovered that it was a T. rex fossil. Tyler also obtained the excavation permit for digging on public lands from the BLM and led the excavation.

The discovery crew and Denver Museum of Nature & Science scientists in the excavation site in the Badlands of North Dakota in the Summer of 2023. (Photo/Rick Wicker)

Through a meticulous process that extended over 11 days, the team removed overlying rock and performed a careful excavation around the bones. After the excavation, the T. rex fossil was wrapped in plaster and burlap jacket and air lifted off the hill by a Black Hawk helicopter. The fossil was then transported on a heavy-duty trailer from the Badlands of North Dakota to the Denver Museum of Nature & Science for preservation.

Now that the Teen Rex fossil is here at the Museum, let's dive into the captivating world of the Teen T. rex and the many facts it brings to light:

What can visitors expect from the Discovering Teen Rex live preparation?

The "Discovering Teen Rex" temporary experience offers a unique opportunity to witness scientists actively working on the preparation of the T. rex fossil. Visitors will gain insight into the meticulous process of uncovering and studying fossils, as well as the incredible journey of discovery that led to this finding. The guests will be able to ask the scientists questions and watch as they uncover more bones from this amazing specimen.

The fossil prep lab will be displayed alongside a wide array of dinosaur fossils, including Tricera to ps an d Edmo nt osaur u s , from the Museum’s collection. E xperience history in the making as our team of renowned paleontologists clean, preserve and study this rare adolescent T. Rex fossil — one of only a handful found worldwide — before your eyes on the Museum floor.  “Discovering Teen Rex” is included with general admission.

How Big Was the Teen Rex?

Skeletal diagram showing what bones, highlighted in blue, were discovered during the excavation. (Illustration/ Scott Hartman)

The Teen Rex bones found by the kids included parts of the skull, tail, leg and hip. The scientists carefully wrapped all those big bones in a huge plaster jacket about as long as a pickup truck!

Our specimen, in blue, was much smaller than most other (Photo/Scott Hartman and Franoys)

The Teen Rex was huge - around 25 feet long and weighed as much as two rhinos! But adult T. rexes were even bigger, around 40 feet long and as heavy as four rhinos. The scientists will keep studying the bones to learn exactly how old the Teen Rex was when it died millions of years ago.

How much did it weigh?

The scientists wrapped up the huge Teen Rex fossil in a giant plaster jacket weighing 6,000 pounds – that's as heavy as a baby elephant! By studying its bones, our Museum scientists estimate the actual Teen Rex dinosaur weighed around 3,500 pounds when it was alive millions of years ago. That's about as much as two rhinos!

Learning the exact weight helps the scientists understand how the T. rex grew from babies into such massively heavy adult dinosaurs.

How Can We Estimate the Teen Rex's Age?

Museum scientist Evan Tamez-Galvan uses a 70-pound jackhammer to remove the overlying rock. (Photo/ Natalie Toth)

The scientists used a few different tricks to figure out how old the Teen Rex was when it died. First, they measured the leg bone and compared it to full-grown T. rex leg bones. Since the Teen Rex's was shorter, they could tell it was still growing and just a teenager. They also plan to study the bone up close under a microscope. 

Finding a teenage T. rex is really exciting because most other T. rex fossils are from adults. Studying this Teen Rex lets scientists see what T. rexes were like when they were quickly growing into the massive, fierce dinosaurs we picture. It helps show how they changed from youngsters into ferocious hunters.

Not only is the specimen now on display at the Museum, but the story of this incredible discovery is featured in the recently released film “T.REX,” currently playing in our giant screen Infinity Theater!

Watch the trailer here:

The Museum would like to recognize our exhibition’s presenting sponsor, Chevron. The Museum also acknowledges the generous support of the Genesee Mountain Foundation.

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‘Extremely rare’ dinosaur discovered by 3 tweens: My friends ‘don’t believe me that I found a T. rex’

Call it shovel and pail-eontology.

Three North Dakota boys made the extraordinary discovery of a highly rare Tyrannosaurus rex fossil that could change what we know about dinosaurs.

Now, the achievement of the young brothers Liam and Jessin Fisher and their cousin Kaiden Madsen is being immortalized in a documentary narrated by “Jurassic Park” star Sir Sam Neill, known on-screen as Dr. Alan Grant.

The upcoming film, titled “T. Rex” — set to debut on June 21 — captures the young archaeologists’ unexpected journey, which began as an ordinary hike in the Hell Creek formation of their home state in July 2022.

Millions of years ago, the near-Canada region was an environment comparable to modern-day Florida, abundant with prehistoric turtles, fish, crocodiles and, of course, the king of the dinosaurs among other cold-blooded species.

But two years ago while out with their dad, Sam Fisher, the group thought they uncovered a common fossil of a duckbill dinosaur — which is known for its peculiar head shape .

“I went up to a ledge with my dad and then he and I spotted the bones,” Liam, 9, told The Post. “We called for Jessin and Kaiden and Jessin said, ‘That’s a dinosaur.'”

Jessin, who dreams of being a paleontologist and dressed as one for Halloween, played a pivotal role in the discovery’s unraveling. For years, he had been out on several expeditions trying to find dino bones but never succeeded until that day.

“I had found buffalo and cow bones in the past and knew these were definitely bigger,” Jessin, 12, told The Post of the discovered leg bone. “It was pretty cool.”

They first sent a photo to a family friend, Dr. Tyler Lyson, the associate curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science.

After a year’s worth of paperwork, the group returned to the site for a much closer look, along with the brothers’ mom Danielle and their sister Emalynn, 14.

Jessin and Lyson excavated hand in hand. They first etched out the creature’s neck, jaw and teeth — pivotal parts to reconstructing its dated anatomy.

“To go out with the intent of finding a dinosaur fossil and your first one is a T. rex? That is, even being conservative, one in a million,” Lyson told The Post.

The entire uncovering was captured by the documentary crew, who agreed to tag along after Lyson had only mentioned a few details about how the boys were digging up a dinosaur fossil.

“Never in a million years did I think we would chronicle the discovery of a T. rex in real time,” producer Andy Wood told The Post.

Kaiden, 11, told The Post he was speechless.

“I started bawling when I saw it,” mom Danielle, whose family lives south of Marmarth, told The Post. She admitted that when everyone first came home a year before, her attitude was, “Yeah, okay whatever.”

Not only did they make a discovery lying 67 million years in waiting, but the specimen was a unique, juvenile T. rex.

“If we want to understand how quickly a T. rex grew up from a little chick-sized animal into an 8,000-pound monster, we need juveniles,” Lyson said.

“This is going to be an important fossil and help us determine the rate of growth for the T. rex and how its skeleton changed over time.”

At the end of it all, a Black Hawk helicopter — which Liam bragged he got an exclusive tour of — choppered out the plaster-covered “teen rex” bones to a truck. Lyson then drove 10 hours back to the Denver Museum and prayed not to “run out of gas” with the 6,000-pound payload in the trailer.

Further analysis estimated that the 10-foot-fall young Rex likely weighed in at a whopping 3,500 pounds and was about two-thirds the size of an adult at 25 feet from tail to nose.

It was believed to have been between 13 and 15 years old.

“I’m excited for my friends to see the film,” said Liam. “They don’t believe me that I found a T. rex.”

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Rare fossils reveal a stunning scene from the final days of the dinosaurs

A herd of hadrosaurs. A tiny Cretaceous mammal. The tooth of a predator. An “exceptional” fossil site in South America is giving scientists a new window into the end of the dinosaur age.

The heyday of the dinosaurs ended in fire. About 66 million years ago, an immense asteroid struck ancient Central America and sparked Earth’s fifth mass extinction, wiping out about 75 percent of known species.

Most of what we know about this fateful moment in life’s story comes from North America, among the haunts of dinosaurs like T. rex and Triceratops   in the American West. Paleontologists know far less about how the catastrophe played out farther south—but a dinosaur bonebed recently uncovered in Argentina could help change that.

Called the Cañadón Tomás Quarry, the fossil site has “exceptional potential” to reveal what happened in South America as the mass extinction unfolded, says paleontologist Matthew Lamanna of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. Discoveries at the site include bones from multiple duckbilled dinosaurs called hadrosaurs that may have lived together in a herd, as well as the tooth of a carnivorous dinosaur, a snake vertebra, and a small mammal jaw. These finds show that the rocks preserved both large and small animals from this prehistoric ecosystem.

Today the area is shrub-covered desert, but around 66 million years ago this part of South America was warm, wet, and covered with plants such as ferns and palms . Previous research has shown Cañadón Tomás had a meandering stream that wound toward the sea surrounded by broad floodplains, says paleontologist Noelia Cardozo of the National University of Patagonia San Juan Bosco. The freshwater habitat allowed the creatures found there to be buried and preserved, providing a rare look at life in this part of the world at the end of the Cretaceous period.

“There are far fewer sites that preserve fossils of land-living vertebrates that date to the very end of the Cretaceous in the Southern Hemisphere,” says Lamanna, who recently described the site at the annual Geological Society of America conference .

While fossil-bearing rocks of the right age are harder to find in the Southern Hemisphere, Lamanna says, experts have spent much more time and effort looking for end-Cretaceous fossil sites in the Northern Hemisphere. “There are fewer researchers, and they are often not as well-funded in the Southern Hemisphere,” says University of Chile paleontologist Alexander Vargas, who was not involved with the new research. The result has been a lopsided view of what transpired before and after the asteroid struck.

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The Cañadón Tomás site helps change the story. With large herbivores, signs of carnivores, and material from smaller animals, the quarry provides a window to an entire ecosystem that thrived at the end of the age of dinosaurs.

In 2020 researchers from the National University of Patagonia San Juan Bosco were searching for new fossil sites in Patagonia when paleontologist Burno Alvarez found the end of a foot bone. It wasn’t just an isolated fragment. Working through torrential rain, the team kept searching until they found an entire bonebed.

Experts from the university soon found evidence of more bones at Cañadón Tomás, revealing there wasn’t just one dinosaur at the site, but several individuals of different ages—a possible indication of a herd.

The hadrosaurs piqued the interest of Lamanna because duckbills are relatively rare in South America’s rocks. Such finds on the continent often turn out to be new species, such as the hadrosaur Gonkoken that Vargas and colleagues described earlier this year from Chile.

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Even so, the site didn’t immediately jump out as extraordinary. “To be honest, I wasn’t super excited about the site right away,” Lamanna says. The field team was studying other fossil sites in the area on around the Río Chico headwaters. But all it took was a little sifting for small fossils to find something that would change Lamanna’s feelings about Cañadón Tomás.

“As soon as the little mammal jaw turned up, in two hours of looking, no less, my tune changed completely,” Lamanna says.

The upper jaw fragment, containing five teeth, came from a Cretaceous mammal called a regitheriid. “They were small herbivorous mammals, instantly recognizable by their highly specialized teeth that are riddled with ridges and grooves,” Lamanna says. The animal was probably rodent-like, about the size of a chipmunk, with teeth for grinding up plants. No one had found a fossil mammal jaw in the entire geologic basin. Suddenly scientists realized the site had the potential to reveal new details of multiple animals just before the extinction event.

The mammal wasn’t the only small, significant find. As experts dug in further, they found the tooth of a carnivorous dinosaur called an abelisaurid, like Carnotaurus , as well as a claw from a smaller theropod dinosaur called a noasaurid. The rocks of Cañadón Tomás also yielded the vertebra of a small snake, underscoring that the site preserves an array of life.

Filling in prehistory

The remains of small animals are important fossil site indicators. They often provide more information about the makeup of the local ecosystem than the large, wide-ranging dinosaurs. And because smaller skeletons decompose and break apart more readily than big, sturdy dinosaur bones, small fossils are rare finds. Mammal jaws with teeth in them, especially, help paleontologists better gauge how human’s ancient relatives fared over time.

The collection of fossils from Cañadón Tomás will act as a test on paleontologists’ hypotheses about this critical time. Some studies have suggested that the number of dinosaur species declined in the Northern Hemisphere during the end of the Cretaceous, perhaps making the animals more vulnerable to extinction. “It’s often assumed that, in the southern continents, these patterns mirrored those in the northern, but is that actually true?” Lamanna wonders.

While all non-avian dinosaurs went extinct after the impact, experts are still unclear about the fates of surviving species in the Southern Hemisphere. “It is possible that distance from the impact site may have favored the survival of some groups in the southern landmasses, such as monotreme mammals and the ancestors of modern marsupials,” Vargas says. This would help explain why these groups of mammals are present in southern landmasses today but almost entirely absent from those to the north.

Excavations and analysis of the fossils found at Cañadón Tomás are still ongoing. The field team plans to return to the site later this year and early in 2024, Cardozo says. Each new find has the potential to fill out a global picture of what the end of the Cretaceous was like, not long before the infamous impact. “More and better fossils are always great news,” Vargas says. And Lamanna is hopeful about what the field team may uncover during expeditions to come.

“If our team has already found fossils of a snake, two or three different kinds of dinosaurs, and a mammal, despite only having literally scratched the surface,” Lamanna says, “who knows what else might be there?”

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Three boys discovered teenage T. rex fossil in northern US: 'Incredible dinosaur discovery'

The remains of a juvenile T. rex in North Dakota were stumbled upon not by a group of skilled paleontologists, but rather by three young boys whose goal that day was to simply go for a hike.

Sam Fisher, 45, took his sons Jessin, 12; Liam, 9; and their 11-year-old cousin, Kaiden Madsen, on a hike in the North Dakota Badlands in July 2022, according to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. While hiking, the trio of "young fossil hunters" discovered the rare T. rex fossil, the museum said in a news release .

Once the remains were found, Sam Fisher called Tyler Lyson, his former high school classmate and the museum's curator of paleontology. Lyson returned to the site with the boys and his team of paleontologists in summer 2023 to excavate the fossil, according to the museum. It took a year to retrieve the fossil because Lyson had to get an excavation permit from the land's manager.

"By going outside and embracing their passions and the thrill of discovery, these boys have made an incredible dinosaur discovery that advances science and deepens our understanding of the natural world,” Lyson said in the release. "I'm excited for Museum guests to dig into the 'Teen Rex Discovery' experience." 

How big was the teenage T. rex?

Lyson and his group of paleontologists were able to determine the fossil belonged to a juvenile T. rex by analyzing the bone structure, growth patterns and bone histology, among other techniques, to come up with the age of the dinosaur at the time of its death, the museum announced.

"While histology has not yet been done, but will be, we estimated the size of teenage T. Rex based on the length of the specimen’s tibia (shin bone)," the museum said on a Q&A page about an upcoming documentary for the discovery. "The tibia from our specimen measures 82 cm, compared to that of a full-grown T. rex with a 112 cm long tibia suggests that our specimen likely belongs to a teenager."

The paleontologists believe the "Teen Rex" weighed 3,500 pounds, stood 10 feet tall and was 25 feet long at the time of its death, according to a museum Q&A page. The exact weight of the fossil will be determined through ongoing research and analysis.

In comparison, a fully grown adult T. rex could reach lengths of up to 40 feet or more and weigh up to 8,000 pounds, the page said.

What can the teenage T. rex fossil teach paleontologists?

The teenage T. rex fossil is rare because usually, the T. rex fossils that are found are from older and larger animals, according to the museum. The teenage skeleton will allow researchers to study the growth and development of the T. rex species during a "crucial phase" of its life, the Q&A page said.

"The story of Teen Rex and the three kids, Jessin, Liam and Kaiden, underscores the power of curiosity, determination, and the pursuit of knowledge. It serves as a reminder that anyone, regardless of age, can make a significant impact by following their passions and embracing the excitement of discovery," according to the museum.

Excavation of the teenage T. rex filmed, will premiere at museum

The discovery of the fossil was videotaped and cut into a new 40-minute documentary titled "T.REX," the museum said. The film will be showing on June 21 on the museum's giant screen Infinity Theater.

"With state-of-the-art CGI and cutting-edge paleontological insights, this giant screen movie offers an unprecedented journey into the world of T. rex and its fellow Cretaceous carnivores," according to the release.

A temporary display for the juvenile T. rex fossil called "Discovering Teen Rex" will also be open to the public on June 21, but at 1:30 p.m., the museum said.