RALEIGH, N.C. — Dinosaur aficionados will have a new exhibit to get excited about.
The North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences will soon have something on display that has never been seen before — a complete skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus rex and a nearly complete Triceratops, WRAL reported.
The remains of the two dinosaurs were found together in Hells Creek, Montana, with some believing they fought to the death, The Raleigh News & Observer reported.
The fossils, which still have some dinosaur skin impressions, were found in 2006 and took months to fully uncover, National Geographic reported.
It sat in a private lab’s storage, as the team that found the fossils tried to find a museum to buy it, but there were questions about how it was excavated and cataloged.
Because the remains were found on private land, they could be bought and sold, unlike those that are found on federal lands, National Geographic reported.
The museum, however, started trying to obtain the remains in early 2016 after they were left in a warehouse after not being sold at auction.
“These specimens are pristine," head paleontologist Lindsay Zanno told WRAL. “Every bone is in its natural position as it was when the animal died.”
Why's this important? The specimen includes the best-preserved skeletons of Triceratops and T. rex to date.
— NC Museum of Natural Sciences (@naturalsciences) November 17, 2020
We'll have the only 100% complete skeleton of T. rex ever found. Both dinosaurs were preserved together in a potential predator-prey encounter. pic.twitter.com/HbZmAngpWW
The NCMNS is building a new expansion, including a state-of-the-art paleontology lab, National Geographic reported.
The fossils will go on display in fall 2022, with museum officials hoping that the collection will inspire future scientists and allow them to continue studying the dinosaur fossils for generations, making new discoveries, WRAL reported.
Some of the questions the museum hopes to answer include if there are any skin molecules preserved, if the tyrannosaurus had feathers and how the pair actually died.
The museum has set up a website featuring the two dinosaurs. Click here for more information.
For more on how the dinosaurs came to be in the control of NCMNS, click here.
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