Greetings

The past two decades have seen a boom in palaeontological knowledge of dinosaurs in the Southern Hemisphere, with many spectacular new fossil skeletons from South America, Africa, Madagascar, and even Antarctica.

These discoveries reveal that some of the world’s most unusual and largest dinosaurs evolved on the Southern continents, which are collectively referred to as Gondwana.

Yet, why is it that the dinosaurs from these distant lands are so strange? Why so different from their well-known North American counterparts?

Ultimate Dinosaurs: Giants of Gondwana will answer this question, and tell the dramatic story of how the evolution of the biosphere and our dynamic Earth are forever intimately intertwined.

Focusing on the dinosaurs of Argentina, Africa and Madagascar, the show will explore how plate tectonics divided the supercontinent of Pangaea, where dinosaurs first evolved and spread across the globe about 240 million years ago, into the familiar continents we know today.

The moving and fragmenting continental landmasses sequentially divided and isolated populations of plants and animals, including the great dinosaurs. The isolation of dinosaurs and their ecosystems during the Cretaceous period allowed them to evolve in their own unique directions, and resulted in some of the most bizarre dinosaurs that we know of today.

Ultimate Dinosaurs brings together some of the most spectacular dinosaur discoveries ever made, and highlights cutting-edge scientific discoveries made in the Southern Hemisphere.

I encourage you to come learn about some new and intriguing dinosaurs, most of which have never before been displayed in Canada.

David Evans
Curator, Vertebrate Palaeontology
Royal Ontario Museum