Abu Dhabi: Visitors and residents in Abu Dhabi can now catch a glimpse of Stan, a 67-million-year-old tyrannosaurus rex whose skeleton is part of the Abu Dhabi Natural History Museum’s collection.
The skeleton will be on display from April 6 at a new exhibition on Manarat Al Saadiyat, along with a meteorite specimen and other Natural History Museum exhibits.
The exhibition will essentially provide a glimpse of what the planned Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi will offer. Inspired by the architectural vernacular of the museum, which is designed to resemble natural rock formations, the exploratory space will tell the curatorial narrative of the Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi through a selection of objects from the museum collection.
Stan, for instance, is a mostly complete 39-foot-long (11.7 metres) tyrannosaurus rex, which is one of the best-preserved and most studied fossils of the iconic predator from the Late Cretaceous Period. Known by scientists around the world, years of scientific studies on Stan have helped further knowledge of the dinosaur species.
Meanwhile, the seven-billion-year-old Murchison Meteorite, which famously crash-landed in Australia more than 40 years ago, will also be on display. It has already revealed to scientists new information about the early solar system. Containing a huge range of organic ‘stardust’ compounds as well as pre-solar grains that formed over seven billion years ago — long before our current solar system existed — the meteorite has provided ancient insight into the very building blocks of life.
Glimpse of Abu Dhabi's past
As well as learning about life before our planet existed and the species that roamed the Earth long before humans, visitors to the exhibition will discover what Abu Dhabi was like seven million years ago, when the emirate’s western Al Dhafra region was a rich landscape of rivers, savanna grasslands and forests.
The exhibition will also introduce visitors to the story of the Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi, which is due for completion in 2025. Once open, the museum will take visitors on a 13.8-billion-year journey through time and space and include a thought-provoking perspective into a sustainable future for planet Earth.
The exhibition will run until May 12.