Exhibit Featuring Life-Like Dinosaurs Opens At Bishop Museum In Bradenton Saturday

BRADENTON, FL — More than two dozen life-like animatronic dinosaurs will be on display at the Bishop Museum of Science and Nature starting Saturday.

Dino Don’s DinoVenture, presented by the Bradenton Area Convention and Visitors’ Bureau and Mosaic, is an outdoor exhibition that takes visitors back to the Cretaceous Period — when tyrannosaurus rexes were apex predators — allowing visitors to walk among these roaring, breathing giants in real life.

The accurate animals featured in DinoVenture are complete with silicon waterproof skin and life-like movements. They breathe, blink, and flick their tails — and some are so realistic that they even fart and pee, the Bishop said in a news release.

Most of the dinosaurs of DinoVenture will be outside in The Bishop’s Riverside Plaza, adjacent to the Mosaic Backyard Universe. There, you can encounter:

• Tyrannosaurus rex, one of the largest land carnivores of its era. Weighing in at around 6 tons, T. Rex was the menacing dinosaur featured in the movie Jurassic Park.
• Velociraptor, the other main menace of Jurassic Park. They had three curved claws on their ‘manus’ or hands, and were similar to modern birds.
• Pachycephalosaurus, the “thick-headed lizard” and one of the last non-avian dinosaurs before an enormous comet or asteroid caused the mass extinction event that killed nearly all the dinosaurs.
• Quetzalcoatus, a flying reptile, or pterosaur. This was one of the largest flying animals that ever existed.

DinoVenture at the Bishop will also include Parasaurolophus, Platesaurus, an Oviraptor with its nest, Herrasaurus, Yunnanosaurus and more.

“Our guests will feel like they’ve been transported back millions of years as they walk among these moving, breathing dinosaurs,” Hillary Spencer, CEO, said. “We’re thrilled to offer this new experience where families will make unforgettable memories together! And those who decide to explore both DinoVenture and the museum will discover fascinating connections between dinosaurs and the ancient animals that shared the planet with them, myths of indigenous people, and even modern animals.”

The animals in DinoVenture were created by Don Lessem, the dinosaur advisor on Steven Spielberg’s “Jurassic Park” who is known world-wide for his dinosaur expertise, the Bishop said.

Lessem has written more than 40 popular science books about dinosaurs, has excavated and reconstructed skeletons of some of the largest dinosaurs that ever existed, and has a dinosaur — the Lessemsaurus, a sauropod — named for him.

Advance tickets can be bought online here.