Dinosaur Walk at Melbourne Museum

Dinosaur Walk is an exhibition inside Melbourne Museum that has many dinosaurs and other extinct animals. You are going to see many skeletons of these amazing creatures as we walk back in time. 

Much of the information you will hear today comes from the work of paleontologists who are scientists who study fossils. 

Tarbosaurus bataar means “ alarming lizard”  and this ferocious dinosaur lived in Mongolia.  It has a large skull and powerful jaws like a Tyrannosaurus rex, but it was much lighter and not as top heavy. 

The Tarbosaurus lived 70million –65 million years ago in the Late Cretaceous period.

The Tarbosaurus had very short arms- they couldn’t even reach its mouth. The animal was a carnivore , which means it was a meat eater.  This one is a cast made from the fossil skeleton of a teenage Tarbosaurus;  it’s not even fully grown.  

The Gallimimus bullatus is the largest of the ‘bird mimicking reptiles’. It had a beak with no teeth and was probably an omnivore, meaning it ate both meat and plants. The Gallimimus lived 70 million –65 million years ago in the Late Cretaceous period.

The Gallimimus was a very fast runner- the powerful large legs look like fast running animals today like ostriches. It had long arms with flexible fingers and claws which could be used for digging, collecting food or holding down prey. 

Deinonychus helped change the way we think about dinosaurs. People used to think dinosaurs were sluggish animals, until paleontologist John Ostrom studied the skeleton of Deinonychus and discovered dinosaurs could be fast-moving and agile predators. 

The Deinonychus lived 118–110 million years ago in the Cretaceous period.

The name Deinonychus antirrhopus means “terrible claw” and this refers to the second claw on its foot. It is shaped like a curved blade and would have been used for killing prey. The Deinonychus was an efficient predator and they would hunt in packs. 

The flying reptiles inhabited the earth at same time as many of the dinosaurs you are seeing here, but they are not actually dinosaurs. Instead they belong to the group known as Pterosaurs (winged lizards). The Pterosaurs were carnivorous flying reptiles with skin covered wings. 

The Quetzalcoatlus is the largest of the flying reptiles on display, and it is named after an Aztec god. It may have been the largest flying animal ever. The Quetzalcoatlus had quite a small body compared to its massive wings (12 metres across). 

It is believed that the Quetzalcoatlus lived mostly inland as no fossils have been found near the coast. It was a carnivore and it hunted small animals, such as small dinosaurs.  The Quetzalcoatlus lived 70–65 million years ago in the Cretaceous period.

The Pteranodon sternbergi was a carnivore, just like other pterosaurs. This animal had a wingspan of 3 metres and mostly ate fish.  It may have hunted in the water by doing a ‘belly landing’. The Pteranodon lived 90–70 million years ago in the Cretaceous period.

Another carnivorous flying reptile, the Anhanguera was a fish eater which used its long sturdy jaws to snatch up fish from the sea as it flew low over the water. It had sharp teeth to hold fish in its mouth. 

The Anhanguera was an expert flyer and it would have taken off by running along the ground on its back legs, then taking off when it had enough speed. The Anhanguera lived 112–99 million years ago in the  Cretaceous period.

You may be surprised to learn that dinosaurs lived in the land now known as Australia. Australian paleontologists assisted by  amateur dinosaur hunters have made discoveries of dinosaur fossils across Australia that show how rich and diverse Australia’s dinosaur population was. 

We even have a dinosaur named after our national airline. 

This animatronic model shows what a Qantassaurus may have looked like. It was a small herbivorous dinosaur that lived in the forests of Victoria, which at the time was located in the Antarctic Circle in a very cold and dark environment. 

Qantassaurus had a beak-like mouth for nipping vegetation, with ridged teeth for chewing. It ran on powerful legs using its tail for balance. Discovered in 1996 near Inverloch it is named after the airline Qantas. It lived approximately 120M years ago in the Cretaceous period.

In this case are a variety of fossils discovered across Australia. They include fossilised footprints of dinosaurs, dinosaur bones such as legs, ribs and jaws, and a partial skeleton of a dinosaur discovered at Cape Otway in Victoria.  

These fossils help paleontologists piece together a picture of how dinosaurs lived here millions of years ago, and give us a glimpse into a time long before humans, right up to the extinction of dinosaurs some 65 million years ago. 

The Muttaburrasaurus was a large, plant eating dinosaur.  It was approximately 7 metres long and 2.4 metres tall. It lived in the forests of Australia and was here during the Cretaceous period of 145 million to 65 million years ago. 

This is a cast of a fossil found in central Queensland in the1960s. The Muttaburrasaurus is named after the town of Muttaburra near where it was discovered. The fossil is one of the most complete dinosaur skeletons discovered in Australia.