The Giant Dinosaurs take over 30-year-old Heureka

Heureka brings out dinosaurs to celebrate its 30th – and this time they are the biggest. The Giant Dinosaurs exhibit opens on Saturday, 2 February, featuring moving robot dinosaurs in natural habitats, genuine dinosaur fossils and replica dinosaur skeletons. Visitors can learn how some dinosaurs grew so huge, how palaeontologists do their work and how dinosaurs survive to this day.

"Dinosaurs are fascinating and have the power to get even the youngest interested in scientific knowledge. Our previous dinosaur exhibit was seven years ago, so it is high time we have a new one with the latest information. We are living in a golden age of palaeontology: new discoveries are named every week, changing and improving our understanding of dinosaurs." -Mikko Myllykoski, Experience Director, Heureka

Large dinosaurs have the leading role in the exhibit. For example, Sauropods were the largest animals that ever walked the Earth. Their enormous growth was made possible by a combination of features that no other animal had: they were a mix of bird and reptile.

The exhibit showcases the evolution of dinosaurs. The first dinosaurs lived in the Triassic period some 240 million years ago, and they became the dominant animal group in the Jurassic period some 200 million years ago. They kept their top spot for over a hundred million years. Humans are incredibly young compared to dinosaurs: our existence is a blink of the eye compared to theirs.

The reign of the dinosaurs ended 66 million years ago when an asteroid hit the Earth, bringing about a dark winter that lasted several years. The planet's forests and the animals that depended on them died in the cold and dark. The large herbivorous dinosaurs died off first, which in turn starved the predatory dinosaurs. Only a single group of dinosaurs survived: all contemporary species of bird come from a small number of dinosaur species that made it through the catastrophe.

Fossils are all that remains of dead dinosaurs and other extinct life forms. Only a small number of complete dinosaur skeletons have been discovered. Palaeontologists study fossil animals and plants, and they have developed the means to extract the maximum amount of information from what limited material exists.

Heureka has produced The Giant Dinosaurs exhibit in collaboration with the US-based Exhibits Rex. Company founder Don Lessem is a giant of dinosaur knowledge: the name of the Argentine Lessemsaurus honours Mr Lessem. He also worked as the dinosaur expert for the movie Jurassic Park, and one of Velociraptors featured in the film is also included in the Heureka exhibit.

Heureka's The Giant Dinosaurs exhibit will be available for more than a year from 2 February 2019 until 15 March 2020.

Further information: 

Experience Director Mikko Myllykoski, mikko.myllykoski@heureka.fi, tel. +358 40 9015 244
Heureka website: https://www.heureka.fi/exhibition/the-giant-dinosaurs/?lang=en
Exhibit producer website: www.exhibitsrex.com