Dinosaur exhibits in zoos

Komodo99

Komodo99

Well-Known Member
What is everyone's opinion of zoos that have the dinosaur exhibits. I think they are all right but should be more up to date with the fossil record (raptors and t-rex having feathers etc) and look appealing at the same time. My two local zoos have had dinosaur exhibits,Blackpool has a permanent exhibition and the models save for a few are rubbish and some resemble first impressions of what dinosaurs where thought to look like and Chester has had temporary,animatronic dinosaurs that had more appeal and where scientifically accurate for the most part.
 
Blackpool's dinosaurs are just oversized Mcdonald's toys that have the volume turned up way too loud.
I think that it is a pity that zoos waste all of that space when it could be used for more exhibits. The "dinolands" aren't even that educational anyway.
 
Feathers on dinosaurs is one of those things that I suspect won't be reflected at large until we get a feathery Jurassic Park. That is to say until the media picks up on it in a way that connects with the masses of the population enough to change peoples views.

At present Jurassic Park defines a whole number of generations perception and mental images of dinosaurs (supported by at least a decade or more of similar films where most of the change is in posture).
 
I've only seen dinosaur exhibits in one zoo and that was in 1990. Are they that common?
 
elefante said:
I've only seen dinosaur exhibits in one zoo and that was in 1990. Are they that common?
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In the UK there tends to be very few such as Blackpool,West Midlands Safari park,Wingham Wildlife park and Combe Martin Wildlife and Dinosaur park that have these up permanently as park of their attractions while Chester and ZSL Whipsnade had temporary exhibits.

I'm not to sure about other zoos outside of the UK,I know that Calgary has a dinosaur exhibit.
 
Chester has had temporary animatronic dinosaur displays twice, Bristol is currently having their third one and London zoo is having its first this summer - if I have counted correctly.
They are popular with visitors, particularly with children (after all if they are interested in animals they are probably interested in dinosaurs too) and they are easy to install, relatively cheap to hire, with very low running costs and lots of merchandise to sell as well. You can understand why they are so popular with zoo managers.
 
It doesn't really bother me if large theropod dinosaurus had feathers apart from obvious exceptions such as Yutyrannus and Dakotaraptor which had remnants of feathers preserved in fossils.But this latest discovery will open up more debates on the way T-Rex lived it's life.
 
Tyrannosaurus might have had plumage where the reticulae were unpreserved and don't forget bird reticulae are stunted feathers. Even the new enantiornithine baby in amber has "sparse" plumage (nonthermoregulatory?) so it doesn't mean anything if T. rex was less/sparsely plumed. Prbly go back to Pterosaurs at least.
 
The media overhyped the whole "SCALY TEEEEE WRECKSSSS" thing, especially considering the skin samples that were examined were only the size of a postage stamp :P considering why I avoid news outlets and the media.

My opinion on a lot of these dinosaur exhibits is that as much as a lot are downright inaccurate and even eye-sores to some, they do bring in some revenue and a lot of families love to bring their children to enjoy the animatronics.
 
While I do have a bit of a soft spot for dinosaur exhibits, I feel most of the attractions fail to accurately represent them, as well as take up unnecessary space and cost. That said, I do think using the whole 'birds are dinosaurs' concept such as in Jurong and Miami is a great way to use dinosaurs in zoos (i'd use VR or AR)
 
Yi Qi said:
While I do have a bit of a soft spot for dinosaur exhibits, I feel most of the attractions fail to accurately represent them, as well as take up unnecessary space and cost. That said, I do think using the whole 'birds are dinosaurs' concept such as in Jurong and Miami is a great way to use dinosaurs in zoos (i'd use VR or AR)
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Jurong has dinosaurs??

And what do "VR" and "AR" mean? I'm guessing blindly that "VR" is some sort of weird shorthand for Velociraptor, presumably in the same way that Rhinoceros would never be shortened to "RC", but maybe instead it means Virtual Reality? But then what is "AR"? Analogue Reality? Is it so difficult to type out entire words so that other people know what you are saying?
 
TZDugong said:
Augmented Reality?
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Yes indeed. I was thinking doing something like the Dinosaurs in the Wild for zoo exhibits on dinosaurs.

Oh, and in Jurong Bird Park, there is an exhibit for ratites called Dinosaur Descendants.
 
Yi Qi said:
Oh, and in Jurong Bird Park, there is an exhibit for ratites called Dinosaur Descendants.
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But they don't actually have a dinosaur exhibit. They just use the name as a way to house all the large ratites together.
 
Yi Qi said:
Dude, birds are dinosaurs. Basic fact of science.
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I hope you know what me and chilidonias are saying.

Yes birds are technically dinosaurs but if you were at a zoo with somebody, would you say hey there’s a dinosaur? And then you show them an owl.
 
Yi Qi said:
Dude, birds are dinosaurs. Basic fact of science.
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We all know that birds are the highly derived descendants of dinosaurs. However they are not the same thing. They have had 65+ million years to evolve from their extinct founders, and are decidedly different creatures at this point.
 
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