What you need to know
A 75-foot-necked sauropod will be exhibited at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County’s new NHM Commons in the fall of 2024. The museum is inviting people to name the gigantic, green-boned prehistoric beast, with voting closing on June 20, 2024. The skeleton’s unusual hue is created by the mineral celadonite.
Ask kids or dinosaur-loving adults to draw a dinosaur – a prehistoric beast that stood tall and long and may have let out a loud roar from time to time.
Artists using crayons often get very creative: a dinosaur might have five wings, five eyes, or green bones.
But this latest quirk isn’t all that nonsense, as a sizeable sauropod (think a 75-foot-long behemoth) will make its spectacular dinosaur-like debut at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County in fall 2024…
…with the green bones still perfectly intact.
The emerald-like flecks on sauropod bones are the result of celadonite deposits, giving these long-necked dinosaurs their mysterious hue.
If this strange but scientifically-derived creature captures your imagination, let your imagination run wild: The museum at Exposition Park is working on naming this majestic and unusual new creature.
The NHM website lists a list of adorable candidates, including “Natalie,” whose bones were covered in gnats when paleontologists made the thrilling discovery in Utah in 2007, and “Sage,” named after the green sage that grows outside the museum.
Olive, Verdi and Esme are other playful green-themed name suggestions (Esmeralda, a beautiful Spanish name, sparkles like an emerald).
Whatever name is chosen, this beautiful behemoth will be an incredible discovery by NHM’s chief palaeontologist Dr Louis Chiappe and his “international field crew”, and will be an incredible jewel in the soon-to-open wing of the museum, NHM Commons.
And as if the once-globby-but-still-green, very-long, very-amazing prehistoric superstar wasn’t fascinating enough, here’s another one to inspire your name choice: It’s a “new species of sauropod,” the museum announces, which immediately ups the dinosaur wow factor by about a trillion.
Surely this new celebrity will become one of our city’s most iconic ambassadors and the envy of all non-dinosaur residents.
