Royal Ontario Museum (Toronto, Canada)

Name:

Royal Ontario Museum

Address:

100 Queens Park, Toronto, Canada

Phone Number:

416-586-8000

Ticket Prices:

$22 for adults, $19 for children age 15 to 17, $15 for children age 4 to 14

Hours:

10:00 AM to 5:00 PM Monday to Thursday; 10:00 AM to 9:30 PM Friday; 10:00 AM to 5:30 PM Saturday and Sunday

Web Site:

Royal Ontario Museum

The Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto recently unveiled its brand-new James & Louise Temerty Dinosaur Galleries, which features full-sized reproductions of over 20 dinosaurs, as well as avian and aquatic reptiles--including a skeleton of Quetzalcoatlus (the largest pterosaur that ever lived) swooping down from the ceiling. Among the most popular specimens here are (as you might have guessed) T. Rex and Deinonychus, as well as a huge Barosaurus and various hadrosaurs, such as Maiasaura and Parasaurolophus.

The curators of the Royal Ontario Museum make sure to stay on top of the latest dinosaur discoveries: for example, this is currently the only place where you can see a specimen of Wendiceratops, a horned, frilled dinosaur announced to the world in 2015. This relatively pint-sized (only two tons or so) ceratopsian was discovered by a team including a noted Royal Ontario paleontologist, working with colleagues from across North America.

If you're not sure a trip to Toronto is worth the expense and effort, you may want to check out the "virtual tour" offered on the museum's website. It's not the same as seeing the dinosaurs up close, but it will at least give you a good idea whether you can while away an hour or so with your kids, before going to see other exhibits (like the American Museum of Natural History, the Royal Ontario Museum has wings devoted to subjects other than dinosaurs, including ancient Rome, Egypt and Athens).

The fossil collection of the Royal Ontario Museum doesn't begin and end with dinosaurs. A gallery devoted to Triassic life forms is scheduled to open in 2009, and visitors can currently see numerous fish and invertebrate fossils, as well as specimens of the dinosaur's successors in the "The Age of Mammals" exhibit. Other attractions include "Continents Adrift," which examines the drifting land masses of the Mesozoic Era, and the self-explanatory "The Evolution of Birds."