Ben Miller

@extinctmonsters.bsky.social

4546 Followers 918 Following

Thinking about the art and history of paleontology in museums. Exhibit developer at the Field Museum, opinions my own. he/him Website: extinctmonsters.net

Museum diorama behind glass. Cyclorama backdrop shows a fast moving shallow river.
Concept render of an open diorama with an elephant and zebra alongside a small baobab tree and some termite mounds in a corner of a museum exhibit.
Paraceratherium facing off with brown Diplodocus
Model Paraceratherium, which is a gray long necked rhino
Museum gallery with minimalist tree flats and cases of plant fossils. Pop art-style Plesiadapis on the far wall.
Dusty/muddy black jeep posing on a hill with nuclear cooling towers in the distance
Cast skeleton of baby Allosaurus with mouth wide open
Zbrush model of a mechanical/steampunk/robot cape buffalo
Big, medium, and small dinosaur skulls in museum case. Since they are only partially complete, metal armature suspends the fragments in place and fills in the gaps in wireframe
Cast skeleton of Lythronax, a smallish tyrannosaur, in a museum exhibit corral
Iguana on a patio with some serious jowls
Drama and natural history While running errands this morning a thought came to me: a natural history exhibit in a museum is a lot like a stage performance. When watching a play, the viewer knows she is seeing a performance, but is willing to suspend disbelief so long as the fantasy is well-created. To varying degrees, most modern natural history exhibits engage in the same theatrical relationship with their audiences. Exhibits re-create reality within the museum environment, and visitors accept the performance as truth.
Screenshot of google results for "impact after the age of dinosaurs.". Sponsored result from Answers in Genesis appears above the AMNH exhibit I was looking for.
Duckweed covered shallow water with lots of stumps
Little rectangle of bone mounted to an acrylic square. Behind it is a larger tyrannosaur jaw for comparison.
Iguana amongst some grasses and wildflowers
Mounted Triceratops skeleton in a beige museum exhibit
Bearded guy in a hat lies next to recently uncovered sauropod humerus that is longer than him
Mounted skeleton of Diplodocus in a fern-filled corral in a museum hall
Triceratops cast skeleton on plexi-bordered platform. Skull is nicely proportioned with a longer snout and shorter nose horn
Triceratops prorsus skull in a museum case against a green background. Its eyes are high and its nose is tall.
BARRON'S GIANT WALRUS SKULL Pontolis barroni 8-9 million years old Miocene 1A CRÁNEO DE MORSA GIGANTE DE BARRON Pontolis barroni Entre 8 y 9 millones de años Mioceno LACM 16₴ MODERN WALRUS SKULL Odobenus rosmarus Alive today CRÁNEO DE MORSA MODERNA Odobenus rosmarus Vive en la actualidad LACM 72561 DESMOSTYLIAN JAW Paleoparadoxia sp. 16-18 million years old Miocene MANDÍBULA DE DESMOSTILIO Paleoparadoxia sp. Entre 16 y 18 millones de años Mioceno LACM 1352 LEATHERBACK SEA TURTLE SKULL Psephophorus sp. 14-16 million years old Miocene CRÁNEO DE TORTUGA LAÚD Psephophorus sp. Entre 14 y 16 millones de años
Museum case with four skulls (3 fossil, 1 modern) on separate platforms
Screenshot text: I'm glad you're the chief of the dino police!
Blue jeep splashing through a big puddle with other vehicles waiting their turns
Black jeep with too little mud on it ready to go in a driveway
Iguana on the back of a chair in front of a sunny window
Colorized photo of 1893 Chicago world’s fair, with an immense courtyard with bridges and fountains obelisks and castles
A big softshell turtle on a sandy path
Two basically perfect but tar stained dragonflies in a small acrylic container
T. rex skeleton on platform on museum exhibit with backlit images of dinosaurs in a forest setting all around
Museum display with five camel skeletons of various sizes behind a rail and in front of a sky mural
Small hadrosaur skeleton prepared in situ. Only a fragment of the skull is included. Inside a large cubic case
Sauropod femur mounted to a low wooden platform. Four children are touching it with both hands
T. rex skull (mostly replica) and jaw (real) in a wood-framed case over a bed of gravel
Pteranodon skeleton laid out flat on a graphic panel with body outline behind glass
Allosaurus (low pose) and Camptosaurus (standing tall, with head pointed down) skeletons on a platform in a fancy museum entryway
Bronze T. rex and Triceratops. At first glance the T. rex is running up alongside and attacking but then you see he’s delicately placing a foot against Triceratops’s foot
Leafless tree with several darker colored branches growing out of sockets
Whale skull fossil on platform with projected megalodon behind it
LACM dinosaur hall, which has a mezzanine level overlooking a central open platform with three T. rex skeletons of different sizes.
Orange, shiny, and kind of emaciated looking saber cats: one walking, one laying down with two playful cubs. On a bed of gravel in a circular display
Looking down from mezzanine at black open platform with three T. rex skeletons of various sizes
Mounted Carnotaurus and Camptosaurus skeletons on open platform with sunny windows behind
Mounted skeleton of a young mastodon with stubby tusks from the front, standing on a bed of gravel
Glass-enclosed, round building interior with various ice age animal skeletons on multiple levels. The freizes over the current museum are visible in the background, so this would be an entirely new building.
Overhead illustration of park with round building to the left, square building to the right, and a swoopy path between them.
Model wolf looking very embarassed
Painting of saber cats biting a camel. Camel looks alarmed and cat looks merose
Inverted triangle building set into a grassy hill with palm trees out front
Mounted sauropod skeleton from the front, alongside a wavy copper wall in a long, narrow hall.
Mounted tyrannosaur skeletons on either side of a T. rex foot from a low angle.
Midsection of mounted plesiosaur skeleton with a bumpy little blob suspended inside
Horrific toothy maw of vaguely hippo like creature with widely spaced, uneven incisors
Looking down on giant camel and horse skeletons (plus a mastodon butt). Horse skull looks friendly, camel has huge scary fangs
Black platform with Allosaurus and Stegosaurus skeletons (some real material in there) and no barrier, other then the height
Diorama case with colorful array of stylized animals and scenery items
Reframing Dioramas exhibit intro display, with cat mounted in a leaping pounce next to a rack of animal skulls and bones
Photo from mezzanine level of dinosaur exhibit with T. rex family group on center platform. Solid color accent walls and lots of natural light
Peppers ghost hologram of an ammonite appears over a real ammonite fossil in a dark case