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The spectacular dinosaur exhibition "Legends of the Giant Dinosaurs" was officially opened today (November 7). The dinosaur exhibition is the largest of its type ever held in Hong Kong, and is the climax of the exhibition series currently being presented by the Leisure and Cultural Services Department (LCSD). The opening ceremony of the exhibition was held today at the Hong Kong Science Museum with the Chief Secretary for Administration, Mrs Carrie Lam, as the officiating guest.
Also officiating were the Deputy Director of the Geological Environment Department of the Ministry of Land and Resources, Mr Tao Qingfa; Steward of the Hong Kong Jockey Club, Dr Rita Fan; the Chairman of the Science Museum Advisory Panel of the LCSD, Professor Roland Chin; Researcher of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Professor Dong Zhiming; the Director of Leisure and Cultural Services, Mrs Betty Fung; the Division Director of the Environmental Protection Division of the Geological Environment Department of the Ministry of Land and Resources, Mr Li Jijiang; the Curator of the Beijing Museum of Natural History, Dr Meng Qingjin; the Curator of the Henan Geological Museum, Mr Pu Hanyong; the Deputy Curator of the Inner Mongolia Museum, Mr Hou Jun; the Deputy County Mayor of the People's Government of Lufeng County, Mr Zhang Dong; the Deputy Curator of the Dalian Natural History Museum, Miss Gao Chunling; the Deputy Curator of the Chongqing Museum of Natural History, Mr Dong Zheng; the Director of the Gansu Liujiaxia Dinosaur National Geopark Authority, Mr Kong Delai; the Curator of Dalian Xinghai Paleontological Museum, Ms Teng Fangfang; the President of Science Visualization, US, Mr Christopher Sloan; and the Chief Curator of the Hong Kong Science Museum, Mr Michael Wong.
Presented by the LCSD and organised by the Hong Kong Science Museum, the exhibition will run from tomorrow (November 8) till April 9 next year. The exhibition is the third exhibition in the 2013 Hong Kong Jockey Club Series and is solely sponsored by the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust with a $13 million donation. It is also one of the highlight programmes of "Vibrant Hong Kong" under the territory-wide "Hong Kong: Our Home" Campaign.
The exhibition has drawn international participation from 13 institutes, including a number of natural history museums from the Mainland and professional institutes from overseas. The participating organisations from the Mainland are the Dalian Natural History Museum, the Dalian Xinghai Paleontological Museum, the Inner Mongolia Museum, the Beijing Museum of Natural History, the Gansu Liujiaxia Dinosaur National Geo Park, the Henan Geological Museum, the Chongqing Museum of Natural History and the Lufeng Bureau of Land and Resources. The overseas participating bodies are London's Natural History Museum, Canada's Royal Ontario Museum, the American Museum of Natural History, Kokoro Company from Japan and Science Visualization from the US.
The exhibition features a rich variety of content including exhibits that are huge in size. The Hong Kong Science Museum is using a 2 500-square-metre gallery to display the exhibits, comprising more than 190 items, of which half are fossilised dinosaur skeletons, skulls, vertebrae, feathered dinosaurs and eggs. Other highlights include life-size dinosaur skeleton models, robotic dinosaurs and interactive exhibits. Multimedia programmes and computer animations combined with lighting and sound effects will create a captivating ambience to take visitors back to the prehistoric world of more than 200 million years ago to view creatures that dominated the planet for more than 100 million years.
The exhibition is divided into four sections, namely the Multimedia Theatre, the Animatronic Dinosaurs Zoo, the Fossil Excavation Site and the Fossil Gallery. The Multimedia Theatre will take visitors back to the dinosaur era 100 million years ago with a newly created computer animation showing on a 20m-long screen. Featuring Anchiornis, Mamenchisaurus, Tuojiangosaurus, Daxiatitan, Lanzhousuaurus and Xiongguanlong, the computer animation will show visitors how dinosaurs roamed in China in the Late Jurassic and Early Cretaceous periods.
The Animatronic Dinosaurs Zoo features "Dino Jaws" animatronic dinosaur exhibits, which let audiences witness lifelike dinosaur activities and eating habits, such as the ferocious Tyrannosaurs tearing meat apart with powerful jaws and teeth, as well as violent hunting by Velociraptors. Visitors can also become detectives as they find out what the Euoplocephalus ate by studying fossilised dinosaur faeces. They can also interact with some of the animatronic dinosaurs by controlling their movements or triggering them to respond.
Although the dinosaurs disappeared 66 million years ago, their existence has been proved through fossils, which have been contributing important clues to the study of the evolution of life. The exhibition also features a reconstructed fossil digging site displaying the burial stage of dinosaurs, together with a preserved dinosaur track site and other exhibits related to excavation and conservation, enabling visitors to learn about the work and achievements in dinosaur excavation in China. The skeleton of a Lufengosaurus that was donated to Hong Kong in 2008 by Yunnan Province is also featured.
More than 120 precious fossils and exhibits along with interactive games developed using the latest technologies are featured in the Fossil Gallery, where visitors can learn about the latest dinosaur-related discoveries. This area is divided into seven themes: "Continental Drift", "Dinosaurs around the World", "The Giant Dinosaurs", "Locomotion and Footprints", "New Chinese Dinosaurs", "Eggs and Babies" and "From Dinosaurs to Birds". The biggest draws will be the skeleton model of Daxiatitan binglingi and huge fossil backbones belonging to Ruyangosaurus giganteus, excavated in Gansu and Henan respectively in 2007. These two dinosaurs were members of what is the known as the largest dinosaur species, Titanosaurus. The 30m-long Daxiatitan binglingi is the best-preserved largest gigantic dinosaur of Asia. The total length of a Ruyangosaurus giganteus was estimated to be 38m, with a neck around 16m long and a weight of more than 80 tonnes, making it one of the world's largest dinosaurs.
The exhibition also features precious feathered dinosaur and primitive bird fossils which include the Microraptor gui, the hind legs of which had evolved with feathers. These fossils have indicated that dinosaurs might have evolved into small feathered creatures with flying ability long before their extinction.
Furthermore, a group of large robotic dinosaurs put on display outside the museum has taken the lead in attracting the public. The most spectacular among them is a 30m-long, 10m-high Daxiatitan binglingi. With a swaying head and tail, this gigantic robotic dinosaur can even roar. This huge replica and its robotic companions, two Pterosaurs and a family of three Stegosauruses, are standing in the museum's piazzas to greet visitors to the exhibition. A five-minute laser show, "Evolution of Ancient Life", will also be screened at the piazza at 6.30pm, 7pm, 7.30pm and 8pm on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays during the exhibition period.
To tie in with the exhibition, the Hong Kong Science Museum has organised a variety of education and extension activities with the support of the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust. Among them, the family programme "A Night with Dinosaurs" will give family groups a unique opportunity to stay in the museum overnight with the dinosaur exhibits and take part in an array of fun-filled activities. In addition, the "Erth's Dinosaur Zoo" interactive show, to be conducted by the famous Australian physical performance company Erth Visual & Physical Inc, will offer kids a personal encounter with an amazing variety of dinosaurs. The performers, who will go out in dinosaur costumes to meet the public, will be at the Ping Shan Tin Shui Wai Public Library in the afternoon of November 9 and at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre in the afternoon of November 12. The "Saving Baby Dinosaur" outreach puppet show by local puppet performance groups will travel to schools and non-profit-making institutions to give children an opportunity to learn more about dinosaurs in an interesting and joyful atmosphere.
Other extension activities will include lectures by dinosaur experts, guided tours, film shows, science demonstrations, science competitions, fun science experiments, family workshops and more. A Hong Kong Jockey Club-funded transport subsidy scheme will also be introduced to provide free transport for schools. For details and enrolment, please visit the Hong Kong Science Museum's webpage: hk.science.museum.
The standard admission fee for the "Legends of the Giant Dinosaurs" exhibition is $20. Full-time students, people with disabilities and senior citizens aged 60 or above are eligible for half-price concessionary tickets at $10. Groups of 20 persons or above can obtain a 30 per cent discount, with each ticket priced at $14. The museum has also introduced special combined tickets for this exhibition. Visitors who purchase standard-rate tickets for the thematic exhibition and the permanent exhibition will get a $5 discount. The price of the combined ticket at standard rate is $40. Prices for the concessionary combined ticket and the group combined ticket are $20 and $28 respectively. Free admission on Wednesday is not applicable for this special exhibition.
The Hong Kong Science Museum is located at 2 Science Museum Road, Tsim Sha Tsui East, Kowloon. It is open from 10am to 7pm on weekdays, and from 10am to 9pm on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays. On Christmas Eve and Chinese New Year's Eve, the museum will open at 10am and close at 5pm. It is closed on Thursdays (except public holidays) and the first two days of Chinese New Year.
For details of the exhibition and related programmes, please visit the Hong Kong Science Museum's website at hk.science.museum/ms/lgd/eindex.html or call 2732 3232.
Ends/Thursday, November 7, 2013
Issued at HKT 20:12
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