Dinosaur mummy exciting in the abstract, disappointing in person

By Alfonso Zapata     10/9/08 7:00pm

Dinosaur Mummy CSI: Cretaceous Science Investigation is the new dinosaur exhibit at the Houston Museum of Natural Science. The main attraction is Leonardo, the first ever fossilized dinosaur mummy. Seeing as how it's close to Halloween, when the word "mummy" is mentioned, my mind immediately jumps to Boris Karloff. I was stoked to see this dinosaur mummy. A T-Rex wrapped in T.P.? Sign me up!Unfortunately, when they say "mummy," they don't mean King Tut. They mean a dead dinosaur that dried out and mummified before turning into a fossil. And Leonardo isn't exactly one of the cooler dinosaurs, either. He's a Brachylophosaurus, which is a type of hadrosaur. Remember The Land Before Time? Remember Ducky, that annoying little dinosaur who would always say "Yup, yup, yup!" in a really high-pitched voice? That's Leonardo.

Still, a fossilized dinosaur mummy is dino-sized news. If you know anything about fossilization (and I'm sure you do), then you know it's a process during which the spaces between the cells (and even the cells themselves) are replaced with molecules or different minerals, so you get bones and stuff but not much else.

If you know anything about mummification (and I'm sure you do), then you're well aware that a mummy is a corpse that was exposed to very low humidity or a lack of air and, as such, has its skin and flesh intact. By combining the two, you get a fossilized mummy. It's interesting to read about, and it's a huge discovery for the field of paleontology.

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Unfortunately, it doesn't make for a very good exhibit. For the low, low price of $15 ($10 for Rice students), you get to see a short film, read about obscure dinosaurs, see Leonardo and dig in a sand pit. The film is about twenty minutes long. I'm not actually sure because I only watched three minutes of it, but this one guy totally looked like Santa Claus. Dude had the beard and everything. How fitting that this Santa impostor said dinosaurs may have had feathers instead of scaly skin. Whoa, hold up, Science Santa. Feathers? I like my dinosaurs like I like my athlete's foot - cracked and scaly.

They even have renderings of these feathered dinosaurs. They picked really obscure dinosaurs to show off their (hypothetical) feathers. Gorgosaurus? Albertaceratops? Who are these losers? I have to admit, though, that there was one that looked particularly stylish. Daspletosaurus sported a nice feathered faux-hawk. The Cretaceous period may have been vicious, but it certainly was fashionable.

Leonardo himself was cool to see. His mummified condition allowed the contents of his stomach to remain intact so you could see plants and pollen all up in there. You could see his skin (which was scaly, not feathered, Santa), his teeth and his large nasal cavities, which the lady with the name tag informed me were used against predators. See how lame Leonardo is? He warded off carnivores by being obnoxiously loud. Still, this is the closest we've come to seeing a real-life dinosaur.

The highlight of the exhibit is the giant sand pit. There's a model of Leonardo in there, and it's built almost to scale. And there's sand. Lots of sand. And they give you buckets. And shovels. And brushes. Those, my friends, are dino-digging tools. What do you do? You dig for dinosaurs. The sand pit actually has several "fossils" buried all over the place. It's your job to uncover them and study them and pretend you're Alan Grant.

Dinosaur Mummy CSI is a very informative exhibit. If you like to learn about dinosaurs, then by all means go to the museum and spend $15 to see Leonardo and support the dino-diggers. If, however, you like to be entertained by dinosaurs, then you're better off going to Blockbuster and spending $5 to rent Jurassic Park.

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