In one week we’ll be waving goodbye to the Lambeosaurus skull cast that's been at Medicine Hat Public Library for the past 12 months.
To be removed on Sept. 24, the skull cast was on loan to us from the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology. As part of its celebrations to mark its 40th anniversary last year, the world-renowned museum established a Pops-Ups program and sent displays to 10 libraries across Alberta.
The skull cast belongs to a nearly complete skeleton that was found at dig site in the Manyberries area, about 70 kilometres south of Medicine Hat, in the 1930s. Lambeosaurus was a large hadrosaur, or duck-billed dinosaur, and the skull is pegged at between 74.4 and 76.5 million years old. As Youth & Community Librarian and noted dinosaur enthusiast Daniel Morrison explained recently, it was named after Dr. Lawrence Lambe, one of the first paleontologists to do a serious study of Alberta's many fossils.
Immediately after the skull cast as installed here in September 2025, dinosaur fans of all ages were making special trips to the library to see it. Many school classes visited for the rest of the year and it was a big part of our traditional Dinovember program lineup. Even now people are continuing to make a point of visiting the library to have a look, and it catches the eye of everyone who walks by it near the Info Desk.
Thank you to Royal Tyrrell for making us a small part of your 40th anniversary celebration.
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