Albuquerque Museum of Natural History and Science

With our son's second birthday coming up, my wife and I wanted to take him somewhere he would really love for his special day. Like many little boys, he loves dinosaurs, so we naturally thought to bring him on an excursion to Albuquerque, New Mexico's Museum of Natural History and Science. We weren't sure if he would be too young to enjoy it, but it turns out he absolutely loved the place! He couldn't stop telling us about all the animals, rocks and bones he was seeing and would enthusiastically sprint ahead to each new exhibit.

Stan the T Rex

We were greeted by a large T-rex skeleton and some friendly volunteers who told us about the different areas and the best place to get started. All the staff that we interacted with along the way were pleasant and knowledgeable of the exhibits they were posted to. Most of the fossils, bones and rocks seemed to have come from here in New Mexico, which has been a hotbed for mining and archeological finds, including tons of dinosaur and mammoth bones.

Pentaceratops

The Museum was founded in 1986, and features a series of permanent displays illustrating a journey from the birth of the Universe through to the Ice Age of around 10,000 years ago. In the Jurassic Super Giants exhibit, we found complete skeletons of Seismosaurus, Saurophaganax, Stegosaurus, and one leg of a Brachiosaurus. This leg was HUUUGE, bigger around and 4 times the height of an average man. The T-rex who greeted us in the lobby is named Stan, who is about forty feet long and twelve feet high, making him the second largest T. rex ever found. Outside, two large, life-size dinosaur statues lure in passersby, an Albertosaurus and dinosaur found only in New Mexico, the Pentaceratops.