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Exhibits

The Cretaceous

Dinosaurs and prehistoric reptiles used to dominate the land.

The Cretaceous

The Cretaceous

On August 16, 1991, then high school teacher, Robert Gebhardt from Eastend joined our palaeontologists on a prospecting expedition to the exposed bedrock along the Frenchman River Valley to learn how fossils are found and identified in the field.

Within a half a day, he discovered the base of a heavily worn tooth, and a vertebra from the tail, both suggesting that they belonged to a T. rex. 

In June 1994, our palaeontologists began excavating the T. rex, one of the largest known carnivorous dinosaurs. Over 6,000 people visited the excavation site during 1994. The 66-million-year old skeleton is the first T. rex found in Saskatchewan, and was named Scotty. As the individual bones were removed from the rock in our labs, Scotty provided new information both about T. rex and about Cretaceous Saskatchewan.

The Cretaceous Period marked the end of the Age of Dinosaurs. Saskatchewan’s fossil record shows that the province was home to both carnivorous and herbivorous dinosaurs, including meat-eaters like Tyrannosaurus rex, marine reptiles like Tylosaurus, horned dinosaurs like Triceratops, and duck-billed dinosaurs.

Roughly 10 metres in length, the specimen was discovered in the hills around Lake Diefenbaker near Sask Landing Provincial Park.

See a life-size Tylosaurus. A species of mosasaur – Tylosaurus were a large, predatory marine reptile closely related to modern monitor lizards and snakes. They lived 72 million years ago in a large inland sea that covered most of Saskatchewan during the late Cretaceous period.


Saskatchewan After the Dinosaurs

Saskatchewan has a rich prehistoric history that includes life after the dinosaurs.

Saskatchewan After the Dinosaurs

 

Saskatchewan After the Dinosaurs

The exhibit features full-size models of prehistoric animals found soon after the extinction of the dinosaurs.

This section of the Centre looks at the animals and environment that would have been found in southern Saskatchewan about 60 million years ago. Discover reptiles such as a Borealosuchus, the “northern crocodile”, a fish eating reptile called a Champsosaurus as well as some of the mammals that adds to the long, storied history of our prehistoric past.


The Buzzard Coulee Meteorite

See a real meteorite up close.

Buzzard Coulee Meteorite

Buzzard Coulee Meteorite

See an actual piece of a meteorite that crashed near the Buzzard Coulee in west-central Saskatchewan in November 2008, following a fiery meteor shower that lit up skies from Alberta to Montana.

The meteorite is part of our collection; it fell on farmland east of Lloydminster. The owners of the farm, brothers Ian and Alex Mitchell, donated their astronomical find to the Royal Saskatchewan Museum. 

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The Royal Saskatchewan Museum and T.rex Discovery Centre are situated on Treaty 4 territory, the ancestral and traditional territory of the Cree, Saulteaux, Dakota, Nakota, Lakota and homeland of the Métis Nation. We acknowledge the land in an act of reconciliation to those whose traditional territories we are on.