What's 40 feet long and ate dinosaurs?
By DIANE GASPER-O'BRIEN
Exactly 11 years to the date of its opening at a new location, Fort Hays State University's Sternberg Museum of Natural History will unveil a new traveling exhibit to the public.
"The Science of SuperCroc" opens Saturday on the 11th anniversary of Sternberg's grand opening on March 13, 1999.
Coincidentally, the number 11 always will be embedded in the minds of those involved with that opening, as 11 inches of snow fell the night before Sternberg opened in its new home.
However, the opening ceremonies went off as planned, and Sternberg has been attracting visitors from far and wide ever since.
Several traveling exhibits have brought people to Sternberg and Hays over the past decade, including blockbusters such as "A T. rex Named Sue" and "Jurassic Park: The Life and Death of Dinosaurs."
The latest exhibit will feature the actual 6-foot-long fossil skull of the SuperCroc; a cast of the full skeleton; a fleshed-out reconstruciton of the full 40-foot-long, 10-ton crocodile; a copy of the skull for photo opportunities; and an interactive skeleton of a crocodile-mimic dinosaur.
Visitors also will get a glimpse of what it was like to dig SuperCroc out of the Sahara with an expedition tent and supplies on site.
Saturday's activities will begin at 10 a.m. with remarks from FHSU President Edward Hammond and Sternberg Director Reese Barrick, followed by a ribbon cutting by the Hays Area Chamber of Commerce.
That afternoon, children of all ages will be treated to a hands-on activity with Gary Staab, the paleoartist who constructed the fleshed-out, "skin" version of the 40-foot-long version of SuperCroc.
The SuperCroc exhibit, created by Project Exploration out of Chicago, will continue at Sternberg through Aug. 5.
In addition to Staab's visit, Sternberg also will feature Paul Sereno, the paleontologist who discovered the SuperCroc fossil in Niger in 2000.
Sereno will be in Hays next month for a presentation, "When Crocs Ate Dinosaurs," at 7 p.m. April 17 at Sternberg.