Mace Brown Museum of Natural History opens new dinosaur tracks exhibit

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) - The Mace Brown Museum of Natural History has a new dinosaur tracks exhibit.

The new exhibit highlights dinosaur tracks and trackways from around the world.

The museum’s curator, Dr. W. Scott Persons IV says tracks like the ones in the exhibit are important when it comes to things like determining the size of dinosaurs and in some cases, like trackways, when a portion of connected tracks are found together, can help calculate a dinosaur’s stride length and by combining that information with the general proportions of the dinosaur a dinosaur’s speed can be determined.

“Dinosaur tracks are wonderful because they’re an example of where an animal’s behavior is actually being preserved,” Persons said.

Some of the items in the new exhibit include a stegosaurus track cast, a large ornithopod track and ornithopod track paths.

The new tracks in the exhibit aren’t the only tracks being studied at the museum. Persons says they are also studying tyrannosaur tracks in Wyoming.

“We’re actually doing really exciting dinosaur track work out in Wyoming,” Persons said. “We have one of the very, very few tyrannosaur trackways that’s present anywhere in the world.”

Persons says that the museum is currently open by appointment only and anyone can email museum@cofc.edu to schedule a visit. He says the museum will be open for normal operations at the beginning of July.

A virtual tour of the museum is available here.

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