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Los Angeles -- 3.27.08 -- Daily Breeze Photo: Robert Casillas --- The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles will open the Thomas T.Rex lab March 30, 2008. The lab will be a "Paleo-Odyssey" where visitors can see preservation of  T.Rex specimen Thomas who will become part of the newly renovated Dinosaur Hall. T.Rex bones encased in plaster and burlap wait for prep work. 

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  BY MELISSA HECKSCHER >Staff Writer

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With all the fine-tuned finesse of a surgeon, Natural History Museum staff member Robert Cripps uses a dental pick to etch away the hard-packed crumbs of dirt from a knuckle-shaped bone of a Tyrannosaurus rex named "Thomas."

The 66-million-year-old dinosaur is the star of the museum's newest exhibit, "Thomas the T. Rex Lab."

But the hulking reptile isn't the only star of the show. Cripps and the rest of the paleontological team charged with unearthing and identifying Thomas' long-buried bones are part of it, too.

"It's life inside the bubble," Cripps says, sitting a few feet from where a gaggle of spectators peers through a laboratory window. "It's fun in here."

Dubbed a "Paleo-Odyssey," the exhibit allows visitors to watch through sound-proof windows as paleontologists ready Thomas' massive bones for eventual display.

Inside the lab, a large blackboard diagrams Thomas' bone structure and highlights which pieces of him have yet to be found or identified. Airtight glass pods jut out from the lab, allowing scientists to toil away, undisturbed, just inches from onlookers.

"It is equal parts workroom and showcase," said Jane Pisano, president and director of the Natural History Museum. "We want people to see and understand how a dinosaur fossil makes a journey from a dig site in Montana to the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles."

Getting Thomas to Los Angeles was a project in itself. Paleontologists dug out whole chunks of ground around the bones. Then, to prevent damage to the specimens, these sections of dried dirt were covered in plaster casings for transport.

Prepping Thomas, a process that involves chiseling away the dried earth that has kept him buried for centuries, then identifying and assembling his bones as if they were pieces of a 10-foot-tall jigsaw puzzle, will take several years.

When finished, Thomas will be placed inside the new Dinosaur Hall, set to open in 2011 inside the museum's original 1913 building (which currently is undergoing an $84 million renovation).

When he gets there, he'll be in good company. As a young adult, Thomas will be the missing link in the museum's T. rex "Growth Series," an exhibit that shows T. rex skeletons, side-by-side, from baby to adult. The museum already has baby, juvenile and adult specimens; Thomas will be the resident teenager.

"We really want to get closer to understanding the growth relationship and the size relationship of these animals," said Phil Fraley, whose exhibit fabrication company helped design the "Thomas the T. Rex Lab" and will design future dinosaur galleries at the museum.

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Los Angeles -- 3.27.08 -- Daily Breeze Photo: Robert Casillas --- The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles will open the Thomas T.Rex lab March 30, 2008. The lab will be a "Paleo-Odyssey" where visitors can see preservation of  T.Rex specimen Thomas who will become part of the newly renovated Dinosaur Hall. Paleontological Preparator Doyle Trankina works on T.Rex pelvis bone.  

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"We really don't want people to have any doubt as to what our knowledge is of these specimens," he continued. "We don't want people thinking all of this is make-believe and made up, because it's not. It's a very serious study of the fossil material."

About Thomas It's not just for show. Work conducted in the "T. Rex Lab" is expected to answer several questions about Thomas, including how he died - scientists think he might have had a skull tumor - and his true sex.

That's right. Despite his nickname, scientists aren't yet sure whether Thomas is a he or a she. This could change if paleontologists discover the medullary bone, a reservoir of calcium found in female T. rexes.

"There are still many things we can learn," said Luis Chiappe, director of the museum's Dinosaur Institute. "The public will be able to see the process of scientific discovery in real time."

Here's what they do know:

Thomas lived at the end of the Cretaceous Period during the Mesozoic Era - the last era of dinosaurs before their mass extinction, believed to have been caused by a meteor impact.

He likely weighed about 8,000 pounds, stood about 10 feet high at the hip, and was about 13 when he died in a sandbar of a meandering river on what is now federal land in southeastern Montana. Chiappe and his team of 15 staff, students and volunteers uncovered Thomas during three summer field expeditions there between 2003 and 2005.

He was a rare find. With about 70 percent of his bones intact, Thomas is one of the most complete T. rex specimens in collections worldwide. The most complete (at 90 percent) T. rex is housed at the Field Museum of Chicago.

"Oftentimes, dinosaurs are reproductions," Fraley said. "These are actually the real fossils."

Dinosaur hub

The Natural History Museum has one of the largest collections of dinosaurs in the country, with some of the most renowned paleontologists doing expeditions worldwide.

In 2005, the museum founded its Dinosaur Institute, a research organization with a mission to become the dinosaur hub of the West Coast.

"We are already the dinosaur hub for the West Coast in the sense that we have the resources and the collection that no other institute has," Chiappe said. "But we want everybody who lives in California, who lives in Oregon, who lives in Washington, Seattle, to say, `Well, we don't have to go to New York City to see dinosaurs; we can just fly down to L.A.' "

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>What's in a name?

Tyrannosaurus rex means "tyrant lizard king."

>King of the Jungle

The T. rex was one of the largest meat-eating dinosaurs, measuring about 40 feet long and 20 feet high (about the size of a bus).

>What big teeth you have!

The T. rex had more than 50 6-inch-long serrated teeth.

>What's for dinner?

The T. rex was all carnivore. Scientists believe it could eat up to 500 pounds of flesh in one bite. It even dined on large dinosaurs such as the Triceratops (which was, itself, about 30 feet long and 10 feet high).

>Source: www.nationalgeographic.com

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Melissa Heckscher (310) 540-5511, Ext. 329 melissa.heckscher@dailybreeze.com

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