New Mexico: The Tyrannosaur State

Fossils of the Tyrannosaurus Rex and his relatives have been discovered in several places around New Mexico. The rich fossil record there spans about 500 million years, with some very unique fossil vertebrates that include fishes, amphibians, reptiles (turtles, dinosaurs, and birds) and mammals.

- HELEN SERRAS-HERMAN

The New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science (NMMNHS) is a large museum, located near the Old Town of Albuquerque. The museum opened in 1986. Its permanent exhibits focus on a journey through time from the birth of the Universe approximately 13.6 billion years ago to the Ice Age about 10,000 years ago. There are also exhibits on astronomy and space exploration.

Two life-size bronze dinosaur statues welcome visitors at the entry courtyard, offering a glimpse of what’s inside the museum. The sculptures were created by artist David A. Thomas and installed in the mid-1980s. One is a Pentaceratops named “Spike,” and the other one an Albertosaurus named “Alberta.”

Pentaceratops (five-horned face) was a horned dinosaur whose fossils were discovered in the badlands of northwest New Mexico. This dinosaur lived about 75 million years ago (mya). Casts of two Pentaceratops skulls are on display at the museum. Albertosaurus is a tyrannosaur, slightly smaller and more slender than its more famous cousin, the Tyrannosaurus Rex. It was first discovered in Alberta, Canada – hence the name, but fragmentary tyrannosaur fossils found in New Mexico were thought at the time to be Albertosaurus.

The museum’s permanent exhibit Timetracks: A Walk Through Time, offers a journey through millions of years of New Mexico’s natural history. The exhibition begins with displays of dinosaurs, reptiles, and mammals from the Triassic period (200-251 mya) that lived in New Mexico’s and the Southwest’s immense flood plains. From that era, is the little theropod dinosaur Coelophysis, whose first remains were discovered in New Mexico in 1881. Coelophysis is New Mexico’s state fossil since 1981, but the state dinosaur is the Alamosaurus.