Don’t Miss this Dinosaur Exhibit in Grand Rapids!
The popular Pterosaurs: Flight in the Age of Dinosaurs exhibition will be closing at the Grand Rapids Public Museum on Sunday, September 4, 2022. Visitors have limited time left to explore this fascinating exhibit giving a hands-on experience with prehistoric creatures that flew with the dinosaurs.
Close relatives of dinosaurs, pterosaurs are the first back-boned animals to evolve powered flight, and the only vertebrates to develop this ability besides birds and bats. For as long as dinosaurs walked the Earth, pterosaurs ruled the skies. They ranged from the size of a sparrow to that of a two-seater plane.
Visitors can participate in engaging activities such as analyzing bone fragments, exploring dozens of casts of rare fossils, coming face-to-face with life-size models of various species of pterosaurs, experimenting with the principles of pterosaur aerodynamics in an interactive, virtual wind tunnel and more in this exhibit.
“This is the last chance to see and experience Pterosaurs: Flight in the Age of Dinosaurs,” said Kate Kocienski, the GRPM’s Vice President of Marketing and PR. “This exhibit offers a unique perspective for visitors of all ages to feel as if they’re in the field studying these ancient reptiles through informative videos, flight simulations and more.”
The largest exhibition about these flying reptiles ever mounted in the United States, Pterosaurs: Flight in the Age of Dinosaurs highlights research by scientists and leading paleontologists around the world and features casts of rare pterosaur fossils from Italy, Germany, China, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Brazil. The exhibition, organized by the American Museum of Natural History in New York, includes life-size models, captivating videos, and interactive exhibits that immerse visitors in the mechanics of pterosaur flight, including a motion sensor-based interactive that allows you to use your body to “pilot” two species of pterosaurs through virtual prehistoric landscapes.
The Pterosaurs exhibit is included with general admission to the Museum, and is free for Museum members. The GRPM offers discounts for Kent County residents, and Kent County children aged 17 and under visit for FREE every day. Visitors may reserve their tickets in advance to visit the Museum and Pterosaurs, at grpm.org.
The GRPM is also a part of the Museums for All program, an initiative of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), to offer reduced general admission to EBT/WIC cardholders. This benefit includes the Pterosaurs exhibit. Additional details can be found here: grpm.org/admission.
Advance ticket purchase is recommended before you visit to ensure a seamless and contactless entry for each visitor. The GRPM recommends that visitors wear masks properly during the duration of their visit to help prevent the spread of COVID-19 within the community.
Pterosaurs is sponsored by the Dave & Carol Van Andel Foundation, Crystal Flash, DTE Energy Foundation, Bruce Pienten - Wells Fargo Advisors, Media Place Partners, Williams Distributing, 730 Eddy Studios, Applied Imaging, Miller Johnson Attorneys, and Rehmann. Media sponsors for Pterosaurs are FOX 17, STAR 105.7 and WGVU Public Media.
Pterosaurs: Flight in the Age of Dinosaurs is organized by the American Museum of Natural History, New York (amnh.org).
PTEROSAUR DIVERSITY
Despite popular misconceptions, pterosaurs were not dinosaurs, although the two groups are closely related. In fact, these flying reptiles were the first vertebrate animals to evolve powered flight, diversifying into more than 150 species of all shapes and sizes spreading across the planet over a period of 150 million years until they went extinct 66 million years ago. There was amazing variation among pterosaurs, as visitors will discover upon entering the gallery to encounter full-size models of one of the largest and one of the smallest pterosaur species ever found: the colossal Tropeognathus mesembrinus, with a wingspan of more than 25 feet, soaring overhead and the sparrow-size Nemicolopterus crypticus, with a wingspan of 10 inches, displayed nearby. When pterosaurs first appeared more than 220 million years ago, the earliest species were about the size of a modern seagull, but the group evolved into an array of species ranging from pint-size to truly gargantuan, including species that were the largest flying animals ever to have existed. Later in the exhibition, visitors can marvel at a full-size model of a 33-foot-wingspan Quetzalcoatlus northropi—the largest pterosaur species known to date—and the remains of a giant pterosaur unearthed in Romania just a few years ago, which point to a new species that was even stronger and heavier than Quetzalcoatlus.
FRAGILE FOSSILS
For paleontologists, pterosaurs present a special challenge: their thin and fragile bones preserve poorly, rendering pterosaur fossils rarer than those of dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals. Several exhibits break down the fossilization process to show how the composition of pterosaur bones affects their potential for preservation. Visitors will also find out about conditions that produce particularly valuable fossils and view a cast of an exquisitely preserved three-dimensional fossil of Anhanguera santanae. The pterosaur, which died and fell into a lagoon in Brazil 110 million years ago, was buried by fine sediment and the mud formed a hard shell called a nodule around the remains, protecting and preserving the pterosaur for posterity.
PTEROSAURS ON LAND, IN THE AIR, AND OVER WATER
Since pterosaur fossils are extremely scarce, and their closest living relatives—crocodiles and birds—are vastly different, even the most elementary questions of how these extinct animals flew, fed, mated, and raised their young are still mysteries. But recent discoveries have provided new clues to their behavior. Like other flying animals, pterosaurs spent part of their lives on the ground. Visitors will see a cast fossil trackway from Utah that reveals pterosaurs walked on four limbs and may have congregated in flocks. A cast of the first known fossil pterosaur egg, found in China in 2004, shows that pterosaur young were likely primed for flight soon after hatching. What did pterosaurs eat? An interactive display shows their feeding habits varied widely, ranging from Pteranodon diving for fish, to Jeholopterus chasing insects through the air, to Pterodaustro straining food from water like a modern flamingo. A unique fossil cast shows a Pteranodon’s last meal—the remains of a fish stuck in its mouth, preserved for 85 million years.
Focusing on pterosaurs’ unique ability to fly, the exhibition also draws comparisons between pterosaurs and living winged vertebrates: birds and bats. Pterosaurs needed to generate lift just like birds and bats, but all three animal groups evolved the ability to fly independently, developing wings with distinct aerodynamic structures. The short film “Adapted for Flight'' offers viewers a look at the basic principles of pterosaur flight and aerodynamics. A spectacular pterosaur fossil cast known as Dark Wing features preserved wing membranes and reveals long fibers that extended from the front to the back of this Ramphorhynchus pterosaur’s wings to form a series of stabilizing supports. These muscle fibers probably helped pterosaurs adjust the tension and shape of their wings.
Other fossil casts offer additional clues about how pterosaurs lived and behaved. These include Sordes pilosus, the first species to show that pterosaurs had a fuzzy coat and were probably warm-blooded, just like birds and bats, and even some dinosaurs. A gallery display illustrates the incredible variety of pterosaur crests—from the dagger-shaped blade that juts from the head of Pteranodon longiceps to Tupandactylus imperator’s giant, sail-like extension. Visitors can consider the many theories scientists have about how crests might have been used: for species recognition, sexual selection, heat regulation, steering through the air, or some combination of these functions.
Pterosaurs likely lived in a range of habitats. But pterosaur fossils are most easily preserved near water, so almost all species known today lived along a coast. The exhibition features a large diorama showing a re-creation of a dramatic Cretaceous seascape based entirely on fossil evidence and located at the present-day Araripe Basin in northeast Brazil. Two Thalassodromeus pterosaurs with impressive 14-foot wingspans swoop down to catch Rhacolepis fish in their toothless jaws, while a much larger Cladocyclus fish chases a school of Rhacolepis up to the surface. In the background, visitors will see an early crocodile and a spinosaurid dinosaur, which shared the habitat with pterosaurs.
INTERACTIVE PTEROSAUR EXPERIENCES
Several interactive exhibits help visitors see the world from a pterosaur’s-eye view. In Fly Like a Pterosaur, visitors can “pilot” two species of flying pterosaurs over prehistoric landscapes complete with forest, sea, and volcano in a whole-body interactive exhibit that uses motion-sensing technology. For a different perspective on flight, visitors will also be able to experiment with the principles of pterosaur aerodynamics in an interactive virtual wind tunnel that responds to the movements of their hands.
Five iPad stations offer visitors the inside scoop on different pterosaur species—Pteranodon, Tupuxuara, Pterodaustro, Jeholopterus, and Dimorphodon—with animations of pterosaurs flying, walking, eating and displaying crests; multi-layered interactives that allow users to explore pterosaur fossils, behavior, and anatomy; and video clips featuring commentary from curators and other experts.
About the American Museum of Natural History (amnh.org)
The American Museum of Natural History, founded in 1869, is one of the world’s preeminent scientific, educational, and cultural institutions. The Museum encompasses more than 40 permanent exhibition halls, including the Allison and Roberto Mignone Halls of Gems and Minerals which opened in 2021 –and those in the Rose Center for Earth and Space and the Hayden Planetarium, as well as galleries for temporary exhibitions. The Museum’s scientists draw on a world-class collection of more than 34 million specimens, some of which are billions of years old, and one of the largest natural history libraries in the world. Through its Richard Gilder Graduate School, the Museum grants the Ph.D. degree in Comparative Biology and the Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) degree, the only such free-standing, degree-granting programs at any museum in the United States. The Museum’s website, digital videos, and apps for mobile devices bring its collections, exhibitions, and educational programs to millions more around the world. Visit amnh.org for more information.
