When is a T. rex not a T. rex?

Every once in a while my friend Lisa will send me some photos from her travels. She was recently out to Drumheller with her kids to visit the Royal Tyrrell Museum and sent these back.

This is the infamous giant ‘T.rex’-like thing, the unofficial mascot of Drum (as the city is often called).

If you pay the price you can crawl up its butt (no kiddin’!) and look out its mouth (note the icicles hanging from the teeth) over the city. Across the highway in the foreground is the frozen Red Deer River that Barnum Brown, the Sternbregs and other palaeontologists have floated down in search of fossils in milder weather. In the distance you can see the coulee where Joseph Tyrrell found the 1st Albertosaurus skull (trust me).


Lisa takes her life in her hands as she tests the bite of the CMNH’s Dunkleosteous on display at the RTMP.