Diggin’ dino décor

They’ve been chomping at the bit for another rip-roaring exhibition 485 million years in the making.

Nelson Provincial Museum unleashed its four-month-long Six Extinctions exhibition last week featuring skeletons of some of the most fearsome predators to roam the earth, from saber-toothed tigers to a replica of the largest T-Rex fossil ever discovered.

Chief executive Lucinda Blackley-Jimson says, while she hopes the exhibition won’t turn the museum into a Ben Stiller movie, it will be a jaw-dropping visit for all with a wildlife preservation message to be raptor round the museum-goers fingers.

“It takes us through the five mass extinctions that have happened in world history, so those waves of life forms, dinosaurs being one of them, but also some extraordinarily large creatures that lived before,” she says.

“Then it comes into potentially the sixth mass extinction, which is human-driven… and all those things that really impact on our native wildlife here in New Zealand.

“We know that children are going to find this absolutely engaging and enthralling… and it has a really important message about what we as human beings are doing to the life forms on the plant, and what we can do about that to stop driving yet another mass extinction event.”

Lucinda says the museum had an animatronic dinosaur exhibition in 2022, but Six Extinctions will largely be static with 14 prehistoric-themed objects and hands-on activities for hatchlings.

She says the instalment of the 13-metre-long and four-metre-high replica of the largest T-Rex skeleton had “caused a few headaches” for the museum staff.

Lucinda says there is evidence that dinosaurs once roamed Golden Bay following discoveries of their footprints in 2016, and a cast of it is kept in the museum’s collection.

The exhibition will be open until 9 February, 2025 from 10am-5pm weekdays and 10am-4.30pm during weekends.