How Do You Dismantle a Dino? (Very Carefully)

Matthew Carrano

Curator of Dinosauria

National Museum of Natural History

Allosaurus is a predatory dinosaur from the late Jurassic period, about 145 to 150 million years ago. It tended to be about 30 feet long, and it could weigh anywhere from 1500 to 2000 pounds. It had long arms that were used for grasping prey, so they had three sharp claws on them, and had a very large head filled with somewhere between 70 and 80 knife-like teeth.

Peter May

Owner

Research Casting International

Today we're working on the allosaurus, which is on exhibit here at the Smithsonian, the mount was put up about 1981, and what it's due for is a nice new pose and a bit of an overhaul.

Steve Jabo

Preparator


The mounts that were used in the hall have been in their same postures basically since they were mounted, anywhere from the early 1900s through 1940s, 50s, and 60s. And since then we've learned a lot about dinosaur anatomy, we've found out a lot more about their postures and physiology, and so we need to update the information that's in our paleo halls to reflect current knowledge of paleobiology.

Peter May

Owner


We do a little bit of tracking on the bones so we know exactly what's going into each case and each crate, then it's labeled and marked.

Steve Jabo

Preparator


The basic idea is to dismantle it in reverse order that it was assembled out in the hall, so generally the head comes off first, you gotta figure out how the head was attached, and then the tail. And then you just kind of work your way in.

For dismantling to be shipped to another place, you want to get pieces off in as sort of big as chuck as possible, like an entire limb bone might come off as one unit then be packed up.

Peter May

Owner


At a couple points it looked like we were cutting through the actual fossil, but it wasn't, it was cast material. How it was mounted, they ran steel armatures through the center of the bone, sort of like pearls on a string all the way through, so we had no choice but to go through there with a saw.

Matthew Carrano

Curator of Dinosauria


Once the allosaurus is dismantled here it will be packed up very carefully and shipped to a company called RCI, Research Casting International, and they have a facility outside of Toronto, Canada, where they specialize in developing and reconstructing dinosaur mounts. So it will spend some months there, as they do that, they'll create a metal armature for the skeleton then the whole thing will get dismantled again and brought back here, and installed in the new hall when that is ready.

Peter May

Owner


This is probably one of the best jobs we've had. You know, you can't beat coming down to Washington, D.C. and working with the national collection and we'll treat it right. When the animals comes back they'll just be a spectacular display.