The Philip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum
9301 112 Ave T0H 3S0 Wembley, AB, Canada

Join us this Friday for a day behind the scenes at the PJCDM! Children will learn how palaeontologist's excavate fossils, tour our lab facilities and collections, and try their hand at using proper palaeontological techniques to excavate their own mystery object to take home with them! November 20th, 10am12pm or 1pm3pm Ages 7+ (kids under 10 must be accompanied by an adult) 15$ per participant... Grande Prairie Regional Tourism Association Grande Prairie Kids - A GP City Event Guide for Families For more information, please visit: https://dinomuseum.ca/event-cal/pd-day-excavations-program/

#MesozoicMonday Thalassomedon haningtoni was not a dinosaur but rather elasmosaurid plesiosaurs from the Cenomanian stage. The holotype of Thalassomedon haningtoni was discovered by R. L. Landberg in Colorado, USA, in 1939. Thalassomedon haningtoni grew up to 12 meters long, had 62 vertebrae in its long neck (humans and giraffes only have seven) and used it to catch their fish more swiftly. They had heavy, dense bone called pachyostotic bone - the heavier bones slow them to ...dive deep under the surface. Many Thalassomedon haningtoni have been found with gastroliths, believed to help them dive deeper and for the purpose of aiding digestion. Source: https://tinyurl.com/y6gejbg6

Spooky things are happening at the PJCDM! Some of the ghosts of our dinosaur skeletons have escaped onto the museum grounds and taken some of their bones with them. We need your help to find each ghost and reunite the right bones with the right skeletons in the gallery.. if you’re brave enough! Become a Dino-soul catcher for the price of admission during museum hours.

This #FossilFriday we're featuring the 4-meter long fish Ichthyodectes that swam the inland seaway from Canada all the way down to Texas #gptourism #travelalberta #palaeontology

#MesozoicMonday Pterosaurs were likely a common sight in the Cretaceous skies above Alberta. Montanazhdarcho minor holotype, MOR 691, was deposited in the Upper Two Medicine Formation, a layer that is 74 million years old, in the early 1990s in the Blackfoot Nation in Glacier County in Montana USA. "The specimen is made up of a portion of the mandible, most of the left wing and a partial left shoulder, a partial right wing and most of the right shoulder, and some neck vertebr...ae. When complete, Montanazhdarcho had a wingspan of approximately 2.5 meters or 8 feet." (Garland, 2020) A detailed examination using paleohistological techniques determined that MOR 691 was an adult because its outermost cortical bone is lamellar, with few primary osteons and a well-organized "plywood-like" layer atypical of other tetrapods. These features are commonly associated with slow growth, and are not typical of other pterosaur specimens in which well-vascularized fibrolamellar bone dominates. (McGowen, Padian, De Sosa & Harmon, 2002) "A more recent analysis presented by Nathan Carroll at the 2015 Annual Meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology proposed a different placement. He noted that most of the characteristics listed by Padian and colleagues are found in a larger group known as the Azhdarchoidea, which includes the azhdarchids as well as the tapejarids and thalassodromids. In fact, Carroll noted that Montanazhdarcho shares many anatomical details of the shoulder, humerus, and the ratio of the bones in the wing finger with the tapejarids and thalassodromids and may in fact be closer to those families and not an azhdarchid at all." (Garland, 2020) Sources: Garland, N. (2020). Montanazhdarcho - Pteros. & McGowen, M., Padian, K., De Sosa, M., & Harmon, R. (2002). A small azhdarchoid pterosaur from the latest Cretaceous, the age of flying giants.

Calling all local artisans! The Philip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum is looking for local, hand-crafted products available for consignment through our giftshop for the month of December. Products do not need to be dinosaur/palaeo related. #supportlocal If you are interested, please email Amanda at [email protected] !

Our Home School Homework Sessions are the perfect opportunity for parents and children to learn in a new environment! It allows parents & children to book time blocks to do their homeschooling outside of their homes. Parents & students get a cool, socially distanced work space in the galleries & access to our playground! Learn more at https://dinomuseum.ca/progra/home-school-homework-sessions/

The domed skull of the pachycephalosaur Stegoceras, which roamed southern Alberta about 75 million years ago. To learn about a similar dinosaur, check out U of A grad student Aaron Dyer's free virtual speaker talk this Saturday at 3:00 PM on our Youtube channel. #FossilFriday Skeletal drawing by Scott Hartman, 2013.

Do you want to be a Dinosaur when you grow up? Halloween is your chance to pretend for a day! Sign up for a free craft-making slot between 1-4pm to make your very own ceratopsian dinosaur mask. Learn about the amazing array of beautiful frills that decorate these animals’ heads and use your imagination to design a frill equally fabulous! #HalloweenAtTheMuseum Pre-registration is recommended as spaces are limited. To do so, please visit https://dinomuseum.ca/event-calend/ceratopsian-mask-making/

#fossilfriday A presacral rib from the tyrannosaur, Gorgosaurus libratus is our featured fossil for the day. This particular rib is special because it preserves an uncinate scar. To find out what this means, and it’s significance to palaeontologists, Wong Yan-yin on Friday October 30 at 3:00 PM will reveal more during our Virtual Speaker Series. Next week, Palaeontology grad student Yan-yin will be revealing how the history of uncinates in archosaurs has been referred to as, ...a tale of Captain Hook in the fossil record. Last week, Yan-yin, current Palaeontology grad student at the University of Alberta in the Sullivan Lab, (and next week’s Virtual Speaker Series guest), virtually presented at the Annual Meeting for the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, #2020SVP. Pictured is Yan-yin’s poster from the conference. The presentation highlights through macroscopic and microscopic bone tissue analysis, the unique hooked features, (called uncinate processes), seen on certain ribs in archosaurs and argues that these protrusive structures did not evolve independently, but instead are inherited from their common ancestor (homologous) and prevalent across the archosaurian group. It should be noted that this data is currently not published, and there is no paper available yet. Picture 1: (from left to right), lateral view of the presacral rib, zoomed-in picture of what the surface of uncinate scars look like, two CT-images of cross-sectional views of the rib, where the proximal ridge, (pr), is labelled on the rib, (r). The proximal ridge is interpreted as an accessory structure of the uncinate scar in this tyrannosaur. Picture 2: highlighted in red a presacral rib in a skeletal drawing of Gorgosaurus libratus, (modified from Scott Hartman, 2012). Picture 3: Yan-yin’s SVPvirtual poster. Picture 4: Yan-yin with a collection of ribs.

Join the Wembley Public Library and the Philip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum for a family opportunity to learn all about the scaly snakes that slither and creepy lizards that crawl, from the comfort of our theatre seats! For the price of 1$ with museum admission or 2$ without, each attendee will be given entrance to an interactive, child friendly virtual Reptile Show with a free snack and a juice box. Pre-registration is required so sign up at: https://dinomuseum.ca/programs/events-calendar #HalloweenAtTheMuseum

#ThrowbackThursday Last week, Michael Hudgins, ( Michael Naylor Hudgins ), a Palaeontology grad student at the University of Alberta in the Sullivan Lab, virtually presented at the Annual Meeting for the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, #2020SVP. Pictured is Michael Hudgins’ poster from the conference. The presentation focuses on the new thescelosaurid material recovered from our local Dinosaur-Chelonian Bonebed. The site lies stratigraphically within Unit 3 of the late C...retaceous Wapiti Formation. The following excerpt from Michael’s poster features a compelling discovery: The basal neornithischian dinosaur clade, Thescelosauridae (also called Parksosauridae) flourished from the Aptian to the Maastrichtian. This diverse, but in some respects poorly studied, group of small-bodied herbivores existed in both North America and Asia and is divided taxonomically into Orodrominae and Thescelosaurinae. Recent fieldwork in the Grande Prairie area of western Canada has yield new thescelosaurid material from the DC Bonebed. The thescelosaurid material from the DC Bonebed includes a number of disarticulated postcranial and cranial elements and represents the first record of a thescelosaurid in the Wapiti Formation. Michael plans to return to northern Alberta with the BADP team in the near future to continue fieldwork and with the hopes to find more thescelosaurid material with the Philip J. Currie Museum.

Discover the morbid but meticulous world of museum taxidermy! Join us in the new Nature Room to learn about how the animals you see on display went from living breathing creatures to skeletons or stuffed specimens. This drop in program will be available to all ages from 10am-12pm. When it comes to getting an inside look at the gory details, there is no time like Halloween! #HalloweenAtTheMuseum

#ThrowbackThursday Last week, our museum Curator and University of Alberta Professor, Dr. Corwin Sullivan, was able to virtually present at the Annual Meeting for the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, #2020SVP. Founded in the 1940s, the society has over 2,300 members and is the world’s foremost forum on vertebrate paleontology. Pictured is Dr. Corwin Sullivan’s poster from the conference. The presentation focuses on describing caenagnathid, (a family of bird-like manirapt...oran theropod dinosaurs from the Late Cretaceous), material recovered from our local DC Bonebed. The site lies stratigraphically within Unit 3 of the late Cretaceous Wapiti Formation, (~73.5 million years old, based on dating from bentonite layers). The following excerpt from Dr. Sullivan’s poster highlights some exciting news: A specimen, (UALVP 53287), collected in 2014 and originally identified as chelonian, (a reptile of the order Testudines such as a turtle), proved to be the first known caenagnathid dentary from northern Alberta, in Canada. The specimen was recovered from the DC Bonebed, a Campanian locality on the Wapiti River just outside the city of Grand Prairie, and is small but mostly complete. Dr. Sullivan hopes to continue working on this and other nearby localities next season. The ongoing research is part of the Boreal Alberta Dinosaur Project, (an international group of palaeontologists and geologists interested in the dinosaurs and other Cretaceous vertebrates of northern Alberta).

Join us for a fossil casting workshop and guided tour of the museum this Friday!! Learn about the process of fossilization, how professional paleontologist handle fossils, and take home your own fossil cast souvenir! For more information, please visit https://dinomuseum.ca/event-calendar/cast-making-workshop/

HELP! There are Dino-souls on the loose at the PJCDM! Some of the ghosts of our dinosaur skeletons have escaped onto the museum grounds and taken some of their bones with them. We need help to find each ghost and reunite the right bones with the right skeletons in the gallery. Become a Dino-soul catcher for the price of admission during museum hours from October 29th to 31st... #HalloweenAtTheMuseum See more