Rockhounding Around: Dino's Alive @ Moody Gardens, Galveston TX

We went to Galveston this summer and the thing my son wanted to see the most was the Dino Alive exhibit. I couldn't blame him I wanted to see it too!!. Just imagine coming face to face with a dinosaur, well actually face to whatever part of a dinosaur!

Megalosaurus at the Moody Gardens 'Dino Alive' exhibit 6-22-2011

It was part of the Discovery area at the Moody Gardens in Galveston Texas. We were there the week of June 21-26, 2011. (Now that the kids are back to school I finally have a little bit of time to do some blogging about some of the things I did this summer.)

First you had to go through this pyramid to get out side to the Dino exhibit in the back. At the Discovery Pyramid they had a permanent exhibit showing the skeletons of different animals and how the rest of the organisms are attached to the animal. It was very interesting to see how it went from just a skeleton to the way the animal would look like in life.

Can you guess what animal this was?

Sperm Whale skull

It's a head of a sperm whale.
This one is a little easier.

Its an Orangutan

I went to a school where our mascot was a Bobcat, so I just had to get this one. Here's is a little something more about Bobcats.

I also liked this one of a Kangaroo.

I found this all very interesting but my son was constantly wanting me to hurry so we could go to their special exhibit that was only showing for just a short time. It was called 'Dino Alive'. (I wondered why he was in such a hurry to see it, and why he kept on pulling me so we could go to it.)

Here's the brochure that we got when we went into the exhibit.

Moody Gardens 'Dino Alive' exhibit, Galveston TX (6-22-2011)

The first thing my son had to see was the Triceratops. When he was little he used to have a toy that was a Triceratops. It was one of his favorite toys, but the horns were taken off of it because he once used it to poke his older brother with it. He still liked playing with it anyway and liked seeing this animated one with horns.
He thought it was so exciting to see what one would have looked like in real life. These 'Dino's' in the exhibit were automated and it caused him to back up when it turned its head toward him and roared at him. That was more than what he was expecting, but it made it feel more real like. I was just glad we didn't have the real life smells for those Dino, could you just imagine how awful they would have been.

Triceratops at Moody Gardens 'Dino Alive' Exhibit

Triceratops sign giving the basic information about it

Each Dino had a sign in front of it to tell you what you were seeing and a little bit of information about it as is seen in the sign above. Because the signs were so big they were hard to get pictures of, so I only got a couple of them so I would know what they were like but I knew that I'd be able to look the animals up on the internet once I got home and had more time to read up on them.
Here's some more about Triceratops from Wikipedia .

Baby Triceratops @ Dino Alive exhibit Moody Gardens

Now on to the others that were there:

Amargasaurus

Amargasaurus at the "Dino Alive' exhibit @ Moody Gardens

Suchomimus

Suchomimus @ Moody Garden's- Dino Alive exhibit

Allosaurus

Allosaurus @ the Dino Alive Exhibit, Moody Gardens

Megalosaurus

Megalosaurus at the Moody Gardens 'Dino Alive' exhibit 6-22-2011

Omeisaurus

Omeisaurus @ Moody Gardens 'Dino Alive' exhibit

And a Dino exhibit wouldn't be complete with out this fellow- Tyrannosaurus

Tyrannosaurus Rex

And here's a picture of a baby T-Rex, isn't it cute? Wouldn't you love to have one too?

Baby T-Rex

One of my all time favorites is this guy- Stegosaurus. When I was growing up there used be one sitting in front of the Natural History Museum in Cleveland and that was one of my all time favorite places to go. Every time I went I just had to visit the Stegosaurus there and when I took my kids they had to say hi to him too..

And now we're back visiting the one in Galveston TX. Here's a bit more on Stegosaurus. This guy didn't seem as big as the one in Cleveland but it was still an impressive size.