ONTARIO, CANADA.- The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) just opened two new permanent installations, the James and Louise Temerty Galleries of the Age of Dinosaurs and the Gallery of the Age of Mammals. Located on the second level of the ROM’s new, light-filled Michael Lee-Chin Crystal, the galleries present more than 750 specimens that tell the fascinating stories of the world of dinosaurs and the rise of mammals. The displays include 50 spectacular dinosaur specimens, 30 of which are complete or nearly complete skeletons. Some of the Museum’s largest specimens, including “Gordo,” the massive Barosaurus (measuring some 85 feet long and, when alive, weighing 15 tons), will be visible from Bloor Street through the building’s expansive windows—providing passersby with an intriguing preview of the treasures inside.

The Michael Lee-Chin Crystal was designed by renowned architect Daniel Libeskind especially for the display of three-dimensional objects. The building opened to the public in June 2007 with a new shop, restaurant, and special-exhibition gallery. The Temerty Galleries of the Age of Dinosaurs and Gallery of the Age of Mammals are the first permanent-exhibition galleries to open in the new space. Over the next several months, four additional permanent galleries will open in the Lee-Chin Crystal (see schedule on page five).

ROM Director and CEO William Thorsell states, “The ROM is delighted that these superb collections, among the Museum’s most popular and scientifically prominent, are once again on public display, and in the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal. We look forward to welcoming visitors from near and far, and to continuing ROM’s distinguished history of important contributions to the study and understanding of earth’s natural history.”

In both of the new galleries, a vast array of plant and animal specimens drawn from the ROM’s impressive collections are installed in engaging displays that illuminate not only the creatures themselves, but also the natural environments they inhabited and the ways in which particular species evolved in response to these environments.

The James and Louise Temerty Galleries of the Age of Dinosaurs - The James and Louise Temerty Galleries of the Age of Dinosaurs are organized along two general themes—Life on Land and Life in the Sea during the Mesozoic Era (250 to 65 million years ago). These galleries feature fossils and specimens from the Jurassic (200 to 145 million years ago) and Cretaceous Periods (145 to 65 million years ago), while the Triassic Period (250 to 200 million years ago) will be displayed in another gallery to be housed in a portion of the historic Queen’s Park building, opening in 2009.

The Temerty Dinosaur Galleries include a selection of the ROM’s most important specimens, including its most famous dinosaur, a rare and spectacular Parasaurolophus, the hadrosaur (duck-billed dinosaur) known for its tubular head crest that measures over three feet long. There is a selection of horned dinosaurs from Alberta, including the skull of Arrhinoceratops, the best-preserved specimen of its kind and the only complete skull of this rare horned dinosaur, cousin of Triceratops. Other highlights include a full-skeleton cast of a Tyrannosaurus rex, an extremely well preserved Triceratops skull containing a remarkable amount of real, mineralized bone, and the fierce hunter Albertosaurus.

A highlight is the mounted skeleton of one of the largest known dinosaurs, a Barosaurus, which was recently rediscovered in the ROM’s own holdings. Characterized by its extremely long neck, the ROM’s Barosaurus is Canada’s only mounted sauropod skeleton consisting largely of real fossil bone, as well as the country’s largest dinosaur skeleton on permanent display. It is also the world’s only “real” Barosaurus mounted in a life pose. The Museum has nicknamed the dinosaur “Gordo,” in recognition of Dr. Gordon Edmund, who acquired the specimen in 1962.

Accompanying the displays of dinosaurs are numerous fossils of other creatures, plants, and insects that shared the land with the dinosaurs. The Museum has acquired new specimens of flora and fauna of the period to broaden the diversity of its holdings and enrich the context of the dinosaurs already in its collection.

The section of the installation devoted to marine life during the Age of Dinosaurs offers greatly expanded displays. These include the dolphin-like ichthyosaurs and other marine reptiles, as well as an ancient crocodile and fish and invertebrates (including fossil squids), many of which served as food for reptiles. Cast skeletons of a sea turtle that measured 15 feet long and a 17.5-foot long fish, both of which inhabited a sea that covered parts of present-day North America during the Cretaceous Period, can be seen suspended in the atrium above the entrance to the Museum, demonstrating that dinosaurs were not the only giants of their time.

Another section traces continental drift and how land masses developed on earth. Taking visitors from the age of the super-continent through the Age of Dinosaurs and into the Age of Mammals, this series of five exhibits reveals physical and environmental changes over millions of years.

An ongoing theme, “Reefs through Time,” presents the bizarre rudist mollusks, a group of clams that behaved like corals, massing together to form reef-like structures during the Mesozoic. The “Evolution of Birds” reveals how birds are, in fact, dinosaurs; and “K-T Extinction” examines events that led to the extinction of dinosaurs and many other life forms at the end of the Cretaceous Period, making way for the dawn of the Age of Mammals.

Gallery of the Age of Mammals - The Gallery of the Age of Mammals, also on the second floor of the Lee-Chin Crystal, displays specimens from the Cenozoic Era (from 65 million years ago to the present). It presents some thirty large mammal skeletons as well as nearly 400 fossils representing other life forms of the period, including plants, insects, corals, fish, turtles, and smaller mammals.

The Gallery is divided into sections, beginning with “After the Dinosaurs,” which focuses on the mammals that survived the events leading to the demise of dinosaurs. Although these species are extinct, several are distant ancestors of present-day mammals. Fossils on display in this gallery include large grazing herbivores and carnivores like the saber-toothed cats. Displays examine how scientists use fossil evidence to interpret what animals ate and how they stood or hunted, and how plant fossils can help decipher past environments. Highlights include a collection of well-preserved 50-million-year-old fossils from Wyoming, including a large palm frond, and the oldest known complete bat skeletons.

“A World Apart” explores the biodiversity that evolved in present-day South America during a period of continental isolation that spanned more than 60 million years. Specimens such as gomphotheres, giant ground sloth, dire wolf, saber cats, jaguar, and an extinct horse, were collected by ROM scientists in Ecuador and the tar pits of Peru between 1958 and 1961. Other groupings include marsupials, sloths, primates, rodents, bats, notoungulates, and the giant terror birds. Newly arrived species that migrated from North America when the continents joined include the dire wolf, western horse, and saber-toothed cat.

The event that led to the extinction of the dinosaurs also led to the demise of rudist bivalves, the mollusks that looked and behaved like coral. Corals once again became the dominant reef builders and continue to be today. “Reefs through Time” will appear in both galleries of ancient life, with numerous kinds of coral and other reef-living invertebrates.