Press Releases
High resolution photos can be downloaded here.
It's a dinosaur summer at the Virginia Living Museum
May 19, 2010
Stomping, roaring, robotic dinosaurs and ice age mammals come alive at the Virginia Living Museum, Newport News, May 29 – Sept. 6 with “Dinosaurs & More!” an all-new exciting exhibit from Kokoro, the inventor of robotic dinosaurs.
See your favorite dinosaurs: the mighty T-Rex and the gentle Apatosaurus mother and baby. Watch a Maiasaura mother tend her nest filled with hatching eggs. See the bird-like Pteranodon soar above and watch a head-butting Pachycephalosaur.
Enter the ice age and meet the mighty mammals that succeeded the dinosaurs as the dominant species on Earth: the Smilodon, Baluchitherium and Woolly Mammoth.
Kokoro’s exhibits are meant to entertain and educate, to fulfill the fascination children have as they shudder with excitement at the majesty of these creatures. Kokoro creatures don’t just look like dinosaurs and ice age mammals, they behave like them. Motion is amazingly fluid and lifelike and beautifully complex. Walking, feeding, roaring, fighting, hatching and caring for their young – Kokoro models act and interact with captivating realism.
Be awed by the T-Rex, the largest meat-eating dinosaur, whose 17’9” replica is still only 3/5 of the actual size of an adult T-Rex.
Demonstrating how she earned her name “Good Mother Lizard,” a Maiasaura mother tends to her nest filled with hatching eggs, while her juvenile offspring look on. This important nurturing scene teaches children that some dinosaurs cared for their young in a way similar to present-day animals.
An Apatosaurus mother and her baby greet visitors with wide, sweeping neck motions. These peaceful plant eaters appear almost friendly as they observe their surroundings See the bird-like Pteranodon soar above and watch a Pachycephalosaur that likes to butt heads in a show of herd dominance, like bighorn sheep are known to do today.
Enter the ice age (between 60 million and 3 million years ago) and meet the mighty mammals that emerged as the dominant species on Earth. See a Saber-Tooth cat family resting in a tranquil setting, then watch the Smilodon’s power explode as it attacks a giant sloth nearly four times its size. Meet a Baluchitherium, a primitive rhinoceros that was the largest land mammal of all time, and see the enormous tusks of the shaggy Woolly Mammoth, the ancestor of today’s elephants.
“Dinosaurs & More!” is sponsored by Langley Federal Credit Union.
“Dinosaur Days” will be presented in the Wason Amphitheater daily at noon, 1, 2 and 3 p.m. Explore the ancient world filled with amazing creatures while you discover more about dinosaurs and their neighbors in this program featuring live animals.
Showing in the state-of-the-art digital Abbitt Planetarium will be “The Dinosaur Prophecy.” Everyone knows the tale of sudden and dramatic death of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. But did you know that numerous species of dinosaurs lived…and disappeared…long before the cataclysmic disaster at the end of the Cretaceous period? Journey with us to four different dinosaur digs around the world as we explore how these amazing creatures died…and lived! A companion program to “Dinosaurs & More!” It will be shown at 11:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. daily. Tickets are $4 plus museum admission.
Virginia’s natural heritage comes alive at the Virginia Living Museum. The museum introduces visitors to more than 250 living species native to Virginia through exhibits, discovery centers and interactive hands-on exhibits. The exhibits bring people in contact with more habitats, wildlife and plant species than would be encountered in a lifetime of outdoor adventures in Virginia.
The museum is located at 524 J. Clyde Morris Blvd., Newport News, I64, exit 258A.
Summer hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, with extended hours until 8 p.m. on Sundays only June 20 through Aug. 8.
Admission is $17 for adults and $13 for children (ages 3-12). Ages 2 and under are free.
Call 757-595-1900 or visit www.thevlm.org.
-30-