Until you stand close to a life-sized dinosaur, it's difficult to appreciate just how awesome these creatures were. The Royal Tyrrell Museum's Dinosaur Hall houses one of the world's largest displays of dinosaur remains. With everything from the easily recognizable herbivore Triceratops, to the giant Camarasaurus, and the mightyTyrannosaurus rex, Dinosaur Hall excites the dinosaur enthusiast in everyone.

The ancient Alberta landscape was very different from what you see today. Dinosaurs and other animals lived in a lush, coastal environment dotted with swamps, ponds, and marshes. The plants in our Cretaceous Garden are living relatives of the vegetation that grew in Alberta during the Cretaceous Period, 75 – 66 million years ago.

Featuring the world's largest marine reptile, Shonisaurus sikanniensis, this exhibit is a special tribute to our former Curator of Marine Reptiles, the late Dr. Elizabeth (Betsy) Nicholls. The specimen was discovered in the early 1990s along the bank of the Sikanni Chief River in northeastern British Columbia. At first, its massive size and remote location deterred scientists from excavating the specimen. Dr. Nicholls and her crew recognized its scientific value, as well as its vulnerability due to a high risk of damage from submersion.

During the Palaeozoic Era (542 – 252 million years ago), plants and animals moved from the seas to inhabit dry land. At around 300 million years ago, during the Carboniferous Period, diverse communities of plants and animals covered the planet. Just as life was flourishing, a mass extinction wiped out 90% of life on Earth at the end of the Permian Period, 252 million years ago. Known as the Great Dying, this was Earth's most severe extinction event, and marks the boundary between the Palaeozoic and Mesozoic eras.

Over 95% of all animal species are invertebrates—animals without backbones. Invertebrates originated in marine waters (oceans and seas), and diversified greatly during the Palaeozoic Era. This exhibit highlights the incredible diversity of animal life during the Palaeozoic Era.

Please note: This area is currently closed for construction. Our new First Life exhibit will open in May 2024.

Visitors can watch as fossils found right here in Alberta are prepared for research and display. During the summer months, many of our technicians are in the field with palaeontologists, prospecting for, and collecting, fossils. Collected fossils are transported back to the Royal Tyrrell Museum where our technicians remove the surrounding rock to expose the fossils for research.

Foundations introduces visitors to key themes, ideas, and principles behind the study of palaeontology. Using innovative techniques and technologies, Foundations encourages visitors to understand the development of life on Earth, evolution, geology, fossilization, and the extraordinary value of Alberta's fossil record. This exhibit features over 90 specimens chosen to illustrate the story of life on Earth.

Inspired by work conducted by Royal Tyrrell Museum scientists at Dry Island Buffalo Jump Provincial Park, Cretaceous Alberta provides a rare glimpse of Alberta over 69 million years ago. Featuring a family of four Albertosaurus individuals moving across a dry river channel, the exhibit is based on scientific evidence gathered from a mass grave, or bonebed, where at least 12 Albertosaurus sarcophagus skeletons have been discovered.