Dinosaurs Live! at Singapore Science Centre

Tina and Ethan posing next to an animatronic Apatosaurus

“Roar, Growl, Hiss, Grr, Screech and Scream!”

Welcome to the world of the fabulous dinosaurs (also known as the “terrible lizards”) at Dinosaurs-Live!, a recently opened exhibition at the Singapore Science Centre.  Happening from now til 26 Feb 2012, the exhibition showcases almost 50 life-sized dinosaurs, reptiles and other prehistoric creatures brought realistically back to life by awesome animatronics.

Ever since I was a kid, I loved these thundering, colossal, and monumental monsters. I’d pore over every single detail in the precious encyclopedias which I got my grubby hands on, and practically memorised their names.  This latest exhibition of bellowing Behemoths and lumbering Leviathans by the Science Centre is certainly right up my alley!

Join my family and I as we tread through the treacherous terrain of the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous forests with these close encounters of the terrifying kind.

Everything screamed dinosauria at this scientific showcase of staggering sauropods and titanic therapods.

Product sponsor LG got into the act with this 3D TV showcase of National Geographic documentaries.  The three dimensional effect was surprisingly clear and good.

A previous crowd favourite, a replica of Stan the Tyrannosaurus Rex greeted visitors at the lobby of the Annexe building.

Ethan posing with a replica of a Triceratops.  You’ll notice later that we have a thing for this horny beast.

An eerie green covered this huge Deinosuchus, an ancient 15 m long crocodile which ate  dinosaurs for breakfast!

Despite being shrouded in gloom, Ethan managed to get his dino “chops” on a souvenir education booklet.

Dimetrodon was a terrible lizard with a huge sail on its back… wait there’s more…

Apparently, it was more closely related to mammals than to dinosaurs. Hmmm…. grandma what big teeth you have!

Fans of the Jurassic Park movies would recognise Spinosaurus, the huge-ass spine-backed carnivore which thrashed a T-Rex in a fight to the finish.

The body of a huge Sauropod (I think its an Apatosaurus) gave us a perspective of how little we are compared to these giants.

Ethan and Tina studying the characteristics of these feathery Sinosauropterys with a duck-billed Maiasaura (also called hadrosaurs) in the background. Incidentally, many scientists believe that dinosaurs were more closely related to birds than reptiles.

A huge carnivorous bird (Titanis walleri) which looked like a Dodo but was a lot more vicious!

A Dilophosaurus with two duck-billed Parasauropholuses in the background.

A family of three Tyrannosaurus Rex dinosaurs with menacing killer jaws.

The roaring T-Rex was a fierce match indeed for my fearsome wife Tina! 🙂

These cute feathery dinosaurs were the real Velociraptors. Looks like Michael Crichton got his facts a little wrong in the Jurassic Park series!

On the contrary, it was likely that the larger Utahraptors (up to 7 m long) were the real protagonists in Crichton’s fictitious fable.

A long-necked Diplodocus with two soaring Pteranodons hovering ahead.  In case you do not know, the future Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum will showcase three of these sauropod skeletons.  Yippee!

In case you do not know, China was famous for many wonderful dinosaur discoveries.  Yes, they are giants in more ways than one.

This one, called the Omeisaurus, was another towering fellow named after a famous sacred mountain.

Here’s Ethan getting into some handicraft action once again.  He made a clay dinosaur cast.

The next two dinosaurs need no introduction.  This is the walnut-sized brained Stegosaurus (which incidentally had a larger “brain” nearer its hind quarters).

And here in bathed in blue light is the famous Triceratops.  Once again we wasted no chance in getting a photo op for Ethan here.

I believe this second T-Rex skeleton replica is Sue, the other fine specimen flown all the way from the USA.

Our third Triceratops of the day, this time with just its bones intact.

Toddlers wasted no time getting dirty while uncovering “fossils” with their spades and pails.

As for Ethan, he preferred a more sedate colouring activity, joined by Tina.

Finally, the biggest money gobbling “monster” of them all – the gift shop! Fortunately, we managed to sway Ethan’s opinion to purchase something a little more enduring (and less plasticky) at the gift shop of the main foyer of Science Centre.