Starting this week, visitors and students at Mount Royal University in Calgary will be able to experience a new display of prehistoric fossils of creatures that roamed the Earth 65 million years ago, during the Cretaceous period.

Life-sized fossil casts of two dinosaurs and a marsupial have now been placed at the institution’s East Gate and Calgarians of all ages are invited to see them in person, free of charge.

The exhibit, named Cretaceous Lands, joins the school’s popular Cretaceous Seas exhibit and features:

  • Nanotyrannus lancensis: Thought by some to be a juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex, this agile predator possessed dagger-like teeth, a sleek skeleton and may have hunted in packs.
  • Triceratops horridus: Triceratops was a large, four-legged plant eater that weighted up to 12 tonnes. The baby displayed in Cretaceous Lands was probably between one and three years old.
  • Didelphodon vorax: An early member of the marsupials, this pouched mammal was related to the opossum, although semi-aquatic like an otter. With short, heavily constructed jaws and blunt premolar teeth, it likely crushed small prey such as lizards and frogs and the shells of mollusks.

While the display is a great opportunity for visitors to experience and learn about Alberta’s past, students at Mount Royal will also be able to use the display to study the differences between the creatures when extinction was imminent.

Professor Wayne Haglund, one of the contributors to the display, says it shows a true timeline of creatures living during the period. He says the baby triceratops fossil should be of particular interest to anyone who visits.

"That particular dinosaur really represents the last abundant, easily identifiable Cretaceous dinosaur. In fact, it's basically the last dinosaur to have survived until it's final extinction. Concurrently with that, the mammals have also made a presence. They appeared in the Cretaceous as well, usually as relatively small, diminuitive animals, about the size of a mouse or a rat, relatively inconspicuous."

He adds that the goal is to help people see how dinosaurs evolved during their final stages on Earth and how mammals came to be.

"Students, the public, anyone who is viewing it, has an opportunity to do a comparison between the various types of dinosaurs and reptiles, what their skeletal characteristics are, what helps to define them and differentiate them between the one next to it and, in particular, the introduction of mammals to the scene as well. There really is a complex story here that can be interpreted from whatever level you wish."

The exhibit was also made possible through donations from the Government of Alberta, Michelle O'Reilly Foundation, Alberta Palaeontological Society, Canadian Geological Foundation and Tanya and Brad Zumwalt.

For more information on the exhibit and how to book a tour, you can visit Mount Royal’s website.