FIELD MUSEUM PHOTOS
The Albertosaurus mount in the Field Museum remains one of the most unique in the world. The Albertosaurus is actually mounted, reared back in hunting position, over a mount of a Lambeosaurus skeleton on the ground. The mount signifies the hunting patterns and prey of the fearsome Albertosaurus. For many years the mount was staged in the Stanley Field Hall, the main lobby of the museum, but was moved back into the new dinosaur hall in 1994 and a large Brachiosaurus was moved into the lobby. Now the museum is in the process of unassembling the Brachiosaur mount in order to make room for the mount of Sue, the world's largest and most complete T. rex that the museum bought for a record $8.36 million in 1997. Albertosaurus was originally found in Alberta, and Field scientists played a large part in its study and description.
The mount of Albertosaurus is also a popular subject in the paleo literature. Here is an excerpt from Thomas Carr's article in the Spring/Summer 1999 issue of the magazine Dinosaur World:
"The skull of FMNH PR308 (the specimen number for the Albertosaurus ) is among the most recognizable of all theropod specimens. The original skull is on public display at the Field Museum in Chicago in its own glass case on the second floor. The original skeleton is also on public display as the centerpiece of the Field's new Dinosaur Hall (the images above). The skeleton has been remounted with the axial column in a corrected position; previously the skeleton stood vertically on its hind legs with the tail on the ground. As it did before the renovation, PR308 looms above a recumbent skeleton of Lambeosaurus. Casts of the skull of PR308 may be viewed at O'Hare Airport in Chicago and at the Royal Tyrrell Museum's Field Station in Alberta's Dinosaur Provincial Park."
Carr followed up this paper with a follow-up article in the Winter 1999/2000 Dinosaur World. This article stated:
"There is a double irony to the career of the skull of FMNH PR308, an adult tyrannosaurid collected from the Red Deer River badlands in present-day Alberta. A halftone illustration of this skull appeared in Dale Russell's landmark publication on the tyrannosaurids of western Canda (1970). Since then, his image of the skull has become the icon of Albertosaurus libratus in most techical and nontechnical publications that include flesh-eating dinosaurs, but that's not all. Ironically, this skull actually belonged to a Daspletosaurus, a new dinosaur genus diagnosed by Russell in his paper. The second irony is Russell's misidentification of the only articulated skull of his new dinosaur as Albertosaurus."
© 1997 brusatte@theramp.net
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