

đš Due to popular demand, Dino Safari: A Walk-Thru Adventure has been extended until September 5. Get up close and personal with these giant dinos in a thrilling experience! âIn a parking lot of a mall, itâs a lot harder to suspend disbelief,â Zaller said.â Dino Safari is a walk-thru dinosaur exhibition with over 20 realistic and scientifically-accurate animatronic creatures. But he thinks the indoor set up is a far better experience. Toward the end of last year, during the pandemic, his company held an outdoor drive-thru version of the Dino Safari dinosaur at the same mall for a couple of weeks to test out the dinosaurs. Fortunately, this particular old Sears had storage space with tall enough ceilings to make it work. But many spaces lack the ceiling clearance he needs to show off the bigger dinosaurs.
Dino safari free#
Zaller loves being able to use former department store space for exhibits like this because the parking is free and located in heavily trafficked parts of town. He also makes sure there are real dinosaur bones for people to touch. âIf you do a dinosaur display,â Erickson said, âyou gotta have a T. Its fame came in part, Erickson said, because the first sizable skeletal remains were found more than a century ago by New York paleontologists and itâs been long featured at the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan. While there are a few newly discovered dinosaurs included in the mix, he had to feature not just one but two versions of the Tyrannosaurus rex, the most iconic of dinosaurs. âBarney the purple dinosaur,â Erickson noted, âis not entirely unfeasible.â So there are a few dinosaurs with unusual colorations as well.ÄȘnd he said itâs not entirely clear if the dinosaurs roared like lions though that roaring sound is prevalent throughout the exhibition. At the same time, he said paleontologists over the decades have had to guess what colors the dinosaurs actually are so not all the dinosaurs are mono-gray. Some carnivorous dinosaurs, for instance, had bird-like feathers, as illustrated on some of the dinosaurs on display. He hand-selected which dinosaurs to feature and ensured their accuracy as best he could, based on the latest research. His goal for the exhibit is simple: âAs an educator, if someone leaves having learned something, Iâll be thrilled.â âItâs hard to believe these things ever lived,â he said. RODNEY RODNEY RODNEY said there is a magic to dinosaurs that goes beyond those of dragons or other imaginary figures because dinosaurs actually roamed the Earth far longer than humans have. Gregory Erickson, the consulting paleontologist, tries out one of the dino-puppets. He brings a fresh perspective beyond paleontology.â

What Zaller loves about Erickson is his mix of expertise that comes into play in the exhibition: âHeâs a biologist and an engineer and a geologist. âPangea gives us a good base for storytelling,â Zaller said. The exhibit features seven separate rooms representing each future continent.

Dinosaurs emerged around that time, Erickson noted. No matter where you live in this world, dinosaurs were there.âÄźrickson, who has consulted with Imagine Exhibitions for more than eight years, conceived the thematics of this exhibit around Pangea, a supercontinent that existed during the late Paleozoic and early Mesozoic before they splintered into the seven that exist today. âItâs how people learn about plate tectonics and the fact all dinosaurs started when the continents were all together. âThis is more than just looking at rubber dinosaurs,â said Gregory Erickson, a Florida State University professor, paleontologist and curator of Dino Safari who recently gave The Atlanta Journal-Constitution a special tour of his work. STEVE SCHAEFER FOR THE ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTIONÄ«esides the dinosaurs, there is a sandbox for kids to âunveilâ dinosaur bones with brushes, a toddler-friendly slide, workers working dinosaur puppets and a special play area for young kids featuring a dino-friendly cornhole game and an obstacle course. Hendrix Mathis looks over one of the animatronic dinosaur displays at the Dino Safari exhibit at Northpoint mall in Alpharetta Friday, November 19, 2021.
