A world first where a female and male T-Rex are being displayed together. Amber Lamana Auckland Museum’s touring exhibition manager goes over the museum's new giant Lizard as well as answering the hard hitting questions from the Herald's youngest Reporter. Video / NZ Herald
If you’ve wandered into the Auckland Museum this week, you may have noticed a new - or not so new - addition in the works next to the T-Rex skeleton on display at the south entrance.
Female Tyrannosaurus Rex “Barbara” is currently under construction, meaning that for the first time ever, a male and a female T-Rex pair will be on display together right here in Tāmaki Makaurau.
Barbara is sure to be a hit with dino-loving Kiwi kids, especially during the upcoming summer holidays. But if you’re like us, you’ll have some burning questions about her. Where did she come from? What did she eat? How big is she?
So, we sat down with Auckland Museum’s touring exhibition manager Amber Lamana to find out all the facts - not just the boring ones, but what Kiwi kids really want to know about the Tyrannosaurus Rex.
Barbara stands at an impressive 11.7m long and 3.4m high. That’s as long as a bus with a bike rack and the height of a rugby goal post! In fact, she’s bigger than her friend Peter, who paleontologists believe is an adolescent male.
How long will it take to put all the pieces together?
If you work quickly, it could take about a day, but it’s taking three to four days to put all Barbara’s pieces together - about 300 of them! As Lamana says, it’s like putting together a big jigsaw puzzle.
Barbara the T-Rex is under construction at Auckland Museum. Photo / Carson Bluck
How old is she?
Paleontologists think Barbara is about 66 million years old, Lamana says.
What else do we know about Barbara?
Lamana says we can tell from her healed metatarsal bone that she at one point suffered a severe foot injury, possibly after being attacked. The injury would have limited her movements, meaning she couldn’t hunt her own prey while she recovered. It’s likely that other dinosaurs helped feed her or she scavenged for food.
Scientists also think Barbara was pregnant when she died - they found something called “medullary tissue” in her injured bone, which reveals she was building up calcium to lay eggs.
