Huge, yet not quite life-size

On Nov. 21, the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh will unveil the world’s largest dinosaur mural, a 180-foot-long portrayal of creatures and plants that lived in the western United States about 150 million years ago.

Walters and Kissinger

Walters and Kissinger

Walters and Kissinger

Walters and Kissinger

The mural is part of a 30-month, $36 million renovation and expansion of the museum’s dinosaur halls, says Matt Lamanna, assistant curator of vertebrate paleontology. Stars of the mural include the 82-ft-long Brachiosaurus and 30-ft-long Allosaurus (center and right in excerpt above). It also features a spike-tailed Stegosaurus, flying reptiles, and a chipmunk-size burrowing mammal called Fruitafossor ((SN: 4/30/05, p. 285). Remains of these creatures have been found in the Morrison formation, a set of strata found in a swath that stretches from Wyoming to New Mexico, says Lamanna. Fossils in those rocks chronicle life on a floodplain near an inland sea in an era long before the evolution of grasses and flowering plants. Philadelphia-based paleoartists Robert F. Walters and Tess Kissinger painted the Morrison mural and several others to be unveiled at the museum next week. “We’ve been working on this mural for 2 years,” says Walters. “The fact we’ve painted a record breaker is just starting to sink in.”


Additional excerpts from the mural are shown below, courtesy of Walters & Kissinger, LLC.