Patagotitan mayorum: Mega-Dinosaur at Field Museum is Named Maximo, Unveiled June 1

The new titanosaur skeleton cast replacing Sue in the Field Museum’s central Stanley Field Hall now has a name and a debut date, the Chicago natural history museum announced Friday.

The Patagotitan mayorum skeleton replica will be called “Maximo,” Spanish for “maximum” or “most,” a nod to the Argentinian soil in which the original skeleton was unearthed.

And it will officially open June 1, although it will be hard for museum visitors to avoid witnessing the installation of the 122-foot-long skeleton, scheduled for May 23 to 25.

As part of a makeover of the central hall in the museum’s 125th anniversary year, the two-story tall titanosaur will be surrounded by flying reptile models such as pteranodons, and a new hanging garden will occupy nearby airspace.

Patagotitan mayorum is the largest dinosaur yet found, a plant eater first uncovered in Argentina in 2014. The American Museum of Natural History in New York already has a Patagotitan cast on display, but the Field is counting on its more open space to show it to better advantage.

The creature will be roughly in the spot long occupied by Sue the T. rex specimen, which has already been dismantled and moved into a new room upstairs as an exhibit is designed around it. Sue’s debut in its new digs should come in the first part of next year.

Source: www.chicagotribune.com