Half-and-half dinosaur mounts

[Stephen Poropat]

Hi all,

I vaguely remember seeing photos of museum dinosaur "half-and-half" mounts (split longitudinally), with one half of the mount (say the left) as a mounted skeleton, the other half (right) as a life restoration.

However, I cannot remember any specific examples (or books / papers in which I saw them). I think that said mounts would have been in North America, and if not they were at least of North American dinosaurs (I think).

Can anyone help me out please? Thanks in advance!

Steve

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Dr Stephen F. Poropat

Deputy Director

Western Australian Organic and Isotope Geochemistry Centre

School of Earth and Planetary Sciences

Curtin University

Bentley, Western Australia

Australia 6102

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[Maxwell Miles Candlen]

Lull’s Centrosaurus mount in the (now old) Yale display comes to mind.

Maxwell Miles Candlen

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[Frank Galef]

Hi,

The San Diego Natural History Museum has an Albertosaurus and Lambeosaurus that have a life restoration on one side and skeleton on the other.

Frank

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[Ashley Poust]

Hi Stephen,

Many such examples. Here at University of Nebraska State Museum we have some of the oldest examples (~80 years), but for mammals and a large tortoise. In our case, these were made with the original bones!

Museum of the Rockies had a few excellent dinosaur examples, including Deinonychus.

San Diego Natural History Museum has a large hadrosaur and tyrannosaur near the south entrance.

May or may not be everyone's style, but the public usually appreciates seeing how the bones fit in the animal.

Ashley

Ashley W. Poust, Ph.D. Dr. Michael & Jane Voorhies Endowed Curator Division of Vertebrate Paleontology University of Nebraska State Museum W434 Nebraska Hall, P.O. box 880514 Lincoln, NE 68588-0514 402.472.2657 ashleypoust.weebly.com

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[Stephen Poropat]

This is brilliant folks, thank you! I thought Lull must have done one / had one done, glad to have that thought vindicated!

Cheers,

Steve

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[Thomas Richard Holtz]

Lull was famous for doing these: many of the fossil vertebrates (mammals, synapsids, a few dinosaurs (Centrosaurus, Edmontosaurus, "Laosaurus")) were mounted this way at the Yale Peabody Museum.

The holotype of Ceratosaurus at the Smithsonian wasn also done in this style.

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[Gregory Paul]

I am not sure about the Ceratosaurus. It was  a plaque mount, rare for its time for having the tail in the air. Don't think it was ever a half and half. 

GSPaul

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[Thomas Richard Holtz]

Fair enough. It wasn't exactly half-and-half, but the vertebrae and the pelvis were stuck in the plaster: https://th-thumbnailer.cdn-si-edu.com/fkquptXcNZzimTGeUcEAgjxuoDY=/1000x750/filters:no_upscale()/https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/blogging/featured/Archival_Display_Image.jpg 

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[Tyler Greenfield]

Hi Steve,

The only half-and-half mounts I know are the Deinonychus and Tenontosaurus at the Museum of the Rockies.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Deinonychus_attacks_Tenontosaurus_-_fossil_-_Museum_of_the_Rockies_-_2013-07-08.jpg

https://sunshinewhispers.com/museum-of-the-rockies-review/

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[Guy Leahy]

Attached are photos of the San Diego split tyrannosaur and lambeosaur models. 

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[Thomas Richard Holtz]

Just remembered, the old Tyrannosaurus rex (type of Dynamosaurus imperiosus) mount at the Natural History Museum in London was a half-and-half mount, although to be fair it also included a lot of plaster/fiberglass parts:

https://tetzoo.com/blog/2025/1/13/an-american-tyrant-in-london

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[Richard W. Travsky]

Plaque in the lower right sez "flesh eating reptile". This mother link

 

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/blogs/national-museum-of-natural-history/2018/10/16/smithsonian-dino-celebrity-finally-tells-all/

 

dates this at 1911 so that isn't too surprising ;)

[Jerry Harris]

It never happened, but the old Diplodocus mount in the former dinosaur hall at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science (back when it was the Denver Museum of Natural History) was slated for a plasticene-clay half-body restoration—I want to say this would have been back in the 1950s–1970s, but I don't know for sure. If I recall correctly, there was a storage closet full of blocks of plasticene ready for this restoration that we ended up using to make molds for lots of other things. Can't recall exactly why the restoration never happened, but I'd guess something about the sheer size of it, plus the weight of all that clay, had something to do with it. I can only presume that there would have to have been some sort of armature inside the clay to hold it all up, and I don't know if the clay alone was going to be the restoration or if the clay would've been molded and then cast in something more durable and lighter. If it had happened, it might've been the largest example of such a thing anywhere...I don't know of other sauropods for which this has been attempted.