Take a dinosaur home for the holidays
Dinosaurs have taken over the WA Museum and they can move, roar, fight each other and even go home with you.
A world-first exhibition, Dinosaur Discovery: Lost Creatures of the Cretaceous premiered in Perth on Friday, just in time for the school holidays.
WA palaeontologist Mikael Siversson worked with a team of artists, software developers and animatronics engineers to produce an insight into the last era of the dinosaurs.
On approach to the museum, a towering Spinosaurus roars as it smashes its head through the glass facade.
Visitors will need to download the free Dinosaur Discovery app to see the Spinosaurus, as well as 10 other species, created in "three-dimensional augmented reality" in the museum and on their tickets.
The exhibition features more than 20 life-size moving models, from the massive crocodilian Deinosuchus to the diminutive, armoured Minmi, which lived in Queensland more than 100 million years ago.
The imposing Therizinosaurus stands nearly 8m tall, with scythe-like claws that could have stopped a Tyrannosaurus rex dead in its tracks.
Nearby, the app reveals a battle to the death between a Protoceratops and the infamous Velociraptor, which looks far more birdlike than its Jurassic Park depiction.
Dr Siversson said the dinosaurs and their artificial habitats were based on the latest scientific research.
"We chose the Cretaceous period because that's when we had the highest diversity of dinosaurs," he said.
"Anything from raptors with feathers to dinosaurs with huge claws to dinosaurs with huge sails on their backs."
