How to Build a Dinosaur Page #3

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Well, Erica's been working on

this bone for several weeks.

It will definitely take years

for the entire skeleton to be prepared,

to be cleaned up.

Do you have an idea at the moment

what species of dinosaur this might be from?

Not entirely, in terms of the species.

But we know it's a camarasaurid.

'Camarasaurids were a family of

long-necked dinosaurs.

'We currently know of four different

species of them,

'but Luis is hopeful that he might

have found a fifth.'

So, what features will you be looking at,

as the bones are cleaned up,

to help you refine your identification?

Well, you'll be looking at the shape of

the centrum here,

the configuration of the different processes,

the struts,

the spines of the vertebra that are, in general,

very diagnostic, they're very telling.

You must have to be an amazing anatomist,

and you must have to know

the anatomy of so many different dinosaurs,

to be able to work out what it is you're looking at?

Yes, but sometimes it's difficult.

For example, here...

we have two bones of one dinosaur.

Can you figure out what they are?

Well, mm... I'm a human anatomist

so this is stretching my expertise somewhat,

asking me to identify dinosaur bones!

- And these ones are not very well preserved, I'm sorry.

- Brilliant!

You know, they're fairly kind of flat pieces of bone,

so I would think maybe this is part of

the skull or the jaw.

- Am I anywhere near?

- Yes, you're absolutely right.

So, what you have here are two lower jaws of

a duck-billed dinosaur.

So, they'd come together in the mid-line somehow?

Yes, they actually come together right here.

- SHE CHUCKLES

- The other way round!

Brilliant.

I know how difficult it can be to piece together

an ancient skeleton from fragments,

but I've only ever worked with one species, humans,

so I'm really impressed by palaeontologists,

who have to understand the anatomy of

hundreds of different dinosaur species.

Identifying a dinosaur is just the starting point

for unlocking its secrets and getting it

ready for display.

It will be years before this dinosaur is

ready for the public.

Instead, the centrepiece of Luis's exhibition

will be three T rex skeletons that have

already been excavated

and are now ready to be mounted.

They're being put together in

a workshop in New Jersey.

Resurrecting these awe-inspiring creatures

will require mounting the bones in a way

that reflects the latest scientific understanding

about posture, movement and behaviour.

But the fossil remains of each of these animals

are desperately incomplete.

Paul Zawisha is in charge of turning the partial,

distorted skeletons,

into the most up-to-date reflection of scientific

knowledge.

Okey-doke...

We've got another several weeks and I'm trying to

figure out where everyone's at. Tommy?

Right now we're about...

Everything is articulated. We have to get

the new bases built.

Did you get those hands straightened out?

- Yeah, I think we finally figured it out!

- That's good!

Two days later.

Working closely with Luis,

Paul and his team will turn

a miniature model of the three T rexs

into a finished exhibit.

The science will come alive through

a combination of art and engineering.

Luis came out here several months ago,

he pretty much shifted things around to the scenario

that's going on here.

But again, we have a little liberty,

because we want to make

these things come to life, otherwise they just...

they just don't move and they don't look real.

Fossilised bones are essentially solid lumps of rock,

which means that mounting them into

a skeleton is an enormous challenge.

Most of the bones are real,

which makes them extremely heavy.

We're estimating the total weight of the bones

is a little over a ton.

The femur's probably...

a good 200, 250 pounds apiece,

and we have to set those in place

with special rigging devices.

Heaven forbid one of them falls

because it would take quite a bit of time

to get those back together.

The entire skeleton will be held together using

a custom-made steel frame,

which needs to be strong enough

to support the enormous weight of the fossils.

This will fit in, this will get attached,

to this other section over here,

and I'll take one of these ribs here,

and I'm not sure exactly which one

goes where at this point.

This is number five, so it would...

lay down right in there.

That will actually get screwed in at the bottom

and just settle itself right... right in here.

Like many T rexs,

this one has been given a nickname - Thomas.

He's one of the best T rex specimens ever discovered

but is still only 70% complete.

The missing bones have all been made

by Paul's team,

based on over 30 partial Tyrannosaurus rexs

that have been found so far.

This particular rib, you could see where the real rib

goes together with the artificial rib,

and this is a section that we had modelled

and you can see how it blends in with the real rib,

how it's glued, and it's also pinned on the inside

so it doesn't break.

And these ribs will break like icicles.

If you pick them up the wrong way,

they'll just crack,

break right apart.

It's not just about hanging the skeletons safely.

The steel frame will be a work of art in itself,

millimetre perfect

and subtle enough not to draw attention

away from the dinosaur.

Hon Chin is filing down part of the rib armature.

Again, this is specifically made,

like a piece of jewellery.

It has to hold a specific piece in a special way.

He's at the point where he's starting

to clean up the welds

and it's going to be gorgeous by

the time he's finished, so...!

The pose in which the dinosaur is hung,

while being true to science,

will also involve a degree of artistic interpretation,

to really bring the exhibit to life.

- A little bit more of a sine wave in it.

- OK.

- It's a little too flat

and it's not moving well, so...

Myself and Kevin have been working on the tail

and I don't like the way it looks,

and now we're going to be taking that down next week

and putting a slight bend in that,

to give it a bit more life.

But it's just a visual movement. For instance,

we might change the toes just a little bit

to give this thing a sneaking feeling,

or a pausing feeling.

But it's very, very, very subtle.

You might move one toe just one inch,

in one direction,

and that changes how you visualise this whole thing.

But putting dinosaurs back together

is about more than just reconstructing skeletons.

We need to work out how they stood,

how they moved,

and even understand the details of their physiology,

and that's not something that's easy to get right.

For example, we used to think that

T rex held its head high,

with its tail dragging along the ground.

We saw it as a cold-blooded,

lizard-like creature.

It wasn't until recently that T rex became

a forward-thrusting aggressor,

so fast, it could apparently outrun a car.

So, how did a T rex stand,

and was it really that quick?

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