The Musée-Parc des Dinosaures (Dinosaur Museum-Park) in Mèze, France

Only a few kilometres inland from the Mediterranean Sea within the south of France, and never too removed from Montpellier, is a unprecedented theme park. Driving alongside the D613 from Mèze in the direction of Pezenas, a life measurement mannequin of a Spinosaurus comes into view perched excessive on an embankment. Aside from another very small indicators, that is the principle indication that the park is close by.

The Musée-Parc des Dinosaures (Dinosaur Museum and Park close to the city of Mèze within the division of Hérault and is the most important website museum in Europe to function dinosaur eggs and bones. Kids can embark upon an incredible scientific journey with the assistance of easy phrases displayed on massive explanatory discover boards which might be each enjoyable and academic. All alongside the pathway that winds via the shady pine bushes, youngsters and adults can return in time as they observe the path punctuated with skeletons and life-size reconstructions.

The opposite museum park inside the Mèze website options the origins and evolution of man – from man’s earliest fossil skulls from Africa and his evolutionary journey out of Africa in the direction of Homo sapiens. As you stroll across the park, there are numerous displays reconstructing scenes of life from the well-known fossil skeleton named Lucy and the australopithecines from Africa, to the Neanderthals. Numerous displays present the event of instruments, the management of fireside and a few of the animals that they shared their worlds with.

Life-size fashions, casts of essential fossils from museums all over the world and actual fossils discovered on the positioning kind an exquisite instructional expertise for each adults and kids alike. Not often has an essential palaeontological website, the place ongoing excavations are revealing new finds, been mixed with a theme park offering monetary assist for the work carried on the market.

Background

It was in 1996 that this website was excavated and a few dinosaur egg clutches had been discovered. After additional excavations happened the next 12 months, it transpired that this website contained one of many largest deposits of dinosaur eggs in Europe. It’s late Cretaceous, roughly 68myrs previous, and predominantly comprised of sentimental sandstone layers. Numerous species of dinosaur used this website to deposit their eggs, together with each herbivores and carnivores. Early in 1998, additional excavations led to the invention of an intensive fossiliferous layer containing dinosaur bones close to to a number of nests. Throughout 1999, a crew of palaeontologists from the museum and the College of Montpellier found a brand new species of dinosaur – an ankylosaur now referred to as Struthiosaurus, which is a quadrupedal herbivore three metres in size. The location has additionally produced eggs of the smallest carnivore, Prismatoolithus, that are solely 7cm lengthy and four.5cm throughout. The most recent discoveries are a nest of unhatched eggs belonging to a herbivore and two new species of turtle.

A number of clutches of eggs are displayed in situ complementing the egg clusters in glazed show circumstances initially of the park. These in situ are collapsed or hatched, however when eliminated and ready, the undersides can retain their unique form.
If you’re a dinosaur lover, and in case you have youngsters or when you haven’t, it is a nice day trip, being each fascinating and academic. Nonetheless, in the summertime, it is rather sizzling certainly, however the park affords some refreshments, together with actions for the youngsters, a fossil hunt in a big sand pit and the standard website store with casts of dino-related specimens, resembling tooth and eggs in addition to the standard toys for the youngsters.

Concerning the Writer

Fred Clouter Dip. A D. ATC is an artist and designer, and has been a member of the Medway Fossil & Mineral Society since 1995. He wrote Ammonites and different Cephalopods of the Decrease Cretaceous Albian (Gault Clay and Folkestone Beds) of South East England, and co-authored London Clay fossils of the Isle of Sheppey and London Clay Fossils of Kent and Essex. He’s additionally webmaster of the favored palaeontology web sites: http://www.gaultammonite.co.uk/, http://www.sheppeyfossils.com and http://www.mfms.org.uk.

Additional studying

Musée-Parc des Dinosaures. http://www.dinosaure.eu.

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