We’ve all seen the movies: a serene tropical forest ruled by stealthy raptors and a menacing T-Rex as triceratops and brachiosauruses graze in lush plains nearby. And we see paleontologists digging for their remains in the heat and dirt of the American west. So we understand if the thought of dinosaurs in Antarctica is a little hard to fathom. Let us explain.
Antarctica wasn’t always a land of snow and ice with penguins teetering along its shores. Over 200 million years ago it was part of the supercontinent Gondwana – including parts of what we know as South America, Africa, Australia, the Indian subcontinent and Arabia – and situated much closer to the tropical regions of the world, making the land that is now Antarctica a landscape of lush woodland where dinosaurs thrived. Dinosaurs of Antarctica at Cincinnati Museum Center beautifully recreates the forest landscape and surrounds you with fossils and casts of never-before-seen dinosaurs.
As for the heat and dirt of a North American dig site, you won’t find that today. Instead, it’s an intimidating stretch of ice and rock, as forbidding today as it was when the first Arctic explorers trekked across it over 100 years ago (you’ll meet some of them in the exhibition). Airplanes and helicopters help provide improved access and remove fossils while power tools help penetrate centuries of rock, but the dig isn’t for the faint of heart. It’s a cold, isolated landscape.
But 200 million years ago it was thundering with incredible dinosaurs unlike any you’ve ever seen.
See for yourself at Cincinnati Museum Center’s Dinosaurs of Antarctica, open through January 15, 2023.
cincymuseum.org/dinosaurs-of-antarctica