Virginia Living Museum Permanent Dinosaur Trail

For more than 25 years, dinosaurs have been a popular summer exhibit at the Virginia Living Museum. In 2016, as part of its 50th anniversary celebration, the museum opened a permanent outdoor Dinosaur Discovery Trail.

This permanent exhibit will showcase 16 of the majestic animals that ruled our earth for more than 150 million years. Visitors will walk through the woods to see realistic one-third to full-size dinosaurs from the Jurassic and Cretaceous eras. The dinosaurs will range in size from a mini Ankylosaurus to a 16-foot-tall Brachiosaurus. There will be a mini Apatosaurus photo op and a half-size T. rex.

See what is New April 2021

• Sleeping Ankylosaurus (12 ft long) – fun for kids to climb on!
• Titanosaur femur (8 ft long) – fun for kids to climb on!
• Sleeping Muttaburrasaurus (10 ft long) kids can climb/adults can sit on it too!

Discover our new additions positioned inside the inner circle around the paleo camp area!

The trail will also have a children’s play area, dig pits for amateur paleontologists, including a 30-foot-long Allosaurus skeleton, and three huts full of dinosaur and Ice Age fossils, including real dinosaur fossils collected by museum staff in Montana in 1990 and an actual whale specimen found in Hampton Roads.

“Everybody loves them and there’s nowhere you can go to see a dinosaur in real life,” says museum Deputy Director Fred Farris, who designed the exhibit. “Bringing dinosaurs into a woodland setting makes them come alive!

“This will be an amazing place of discovery and play for kids—-from dinosaurs to real, touchable fossils, from authentic dino dig pits to interactive play items.  Kids can let their imaginations go wild as they play and imagine a world full of dinosaurs. It may also inspire kids to become a paleontologist or other type of scientist in the search for answers to so many unanswered questions about our world.”

The museum is located at 524 J. Clyde Morris Blvd., Newport News (I-64, exit 258-A).

It is open 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. daily.

VirginiaLivingMuseum.org

Walking T-Rex – Dino on the Loose!

Time:  1pm (weather permitting)

Join our walking T-Rex for a 15 minute dinosaur parade, photo ops and a roaring good time on the Dinosaur Discovery Trail on these special Saturdays!

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