Dinosaurs descend on US airports

The presecurity Civic Plaza at Indianapolis International Airport (IND) has served as the temporary home for everything from a regulation basketball court to a welcoming center for attendees of Taylor Swift’s “The Eras Tour.”

Now the airport has made room for a 33-foot-long, 10-foot-tall dinosaur.

A cast of a Tyrannosaurus rex, dubbed “Bucky the T. rex,” recently moved into the airport to help celebrate the 100th birthday of The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis.

The museum is the world’s largest children’s museum, and it actively digs for, prepares and displays unique dinosaur fossils. Its collection includes the real Bucky the T. rex fossil, which is named in honor of Bucky Derflinger, the rodeo cowboy and rancher who discovered it in 1998.

Bucky the T. rex is scheduled to leave IND around April 11, but air travelers can also encounter fossils of dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals at a handful of other airports across the country.

‘Ally the Allosaurus’ at SLC

It seems like it would be difficult to hide a dinosaur at an airport, but officials at Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC) were able to do just that. The airport held a surprise reveal of an Allosaurus fragilis (Utah’s state fossil) cast prior to an October 2024 celebration for the new terminal’s third phase of opening.

A gift from the Natural History Museum of Utah (which is home to the largest Allosaurus collection in the world), the airport’s “Ally the Allosaurus” is 30 feet long, 15 feet tall and 150 million years old. It was cast from a dinosaur discovered and excavated in 1924 at Utah’s Dinosaur National Monument and then trucked to the University of Utah on wagons.

Look for Ally at the entrance to SLC’s Concourse B. Then, visit Dinosaur National Monument near Jensen, Utah, to see the dinosaur’s real skull and the same fossil cast.

Check out this video to learn a bit more about Ally’s journey to the airport:

Mastodon and more at CVG

Thanks to a partnership with the Cincinnati Museum Center — home to the impressive Dinosaur Hall — Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport (CVG) has five ice age skeletons on exhibit along Concourse B.

In addition to a replica of a giant mastodon skeleton in the center of the concourse, travelers can visit the skeletons of an ice age stag moose, a ground sloth, a saber-toothed tiger cast and a dire wolf.

Brachiosaurus named ‘Ernestine’ at ORD

Perhaps the best-known airport dinosaur is the one at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport (ORD).

A 72-foot-long, four-story-tall fiberglass cast of a Brachiosaurus skeleton is impossible to miss in Terminal 1, near Gate B8 and the Field Museum store.

Named “Ernestine,” ORD’s replica dinosaur skeleton was originally displayed in Stanley Field Hall at Chicago’s Field Museum. However, in 1999, Ernestine moved to the airport to make room for “Sue,” the world’s most complete Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton.

T. rex at PIT

A life-size cast of the first scientifically described Tyrannosaurus rex is on long-term loan to Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT) from Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Museum of Natural History.

PIT’s dinosaur is an impressive 15 feet tall and 38 feet long, and it once stood at the entrance of the museum. The cast moved to the transit level of PIT’s Airside Terminal in 2002.

The dinosaur is much loved by the public. Airport officials report that travelers sometimes leave gifts and offerings — including coins, cash, business cards and children’s toys — at the base of the cast.

Here’s a fun video of the dino getting a cleaning:

More airport fossil history

But it’s not just about dino displays — the construction of various American airports has unearthed significant fossil troves as well.

For example, crews found dinosaur fossils at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) during the construction of Terminal B in the early 1970s. What turned out to be the bones of a 25-foot-long Plesiosaur were displayed at the airport for a brief time before being transferred to Southern Methodist University for research.

In 1961, during the construction of a lighting tower at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA), a construction worker discovered the fossil of a 9-foot-tall giant ground sloth dating back over 13,000 years. The sloth fossil is now on view at Seattle’s Burke Museum and is named “Gordy” in honor of Gordon Simmons, the construction worker who first encountered the ancient sloth’s bones at the worksite.

And if you look closely at the bronze images on the terrazzo floor of Concourse B at Denver International Airport (DEN), you’ll spot a few dinosaurs in “21st Century Artifacts.” It’s an art piece by Carolyn Braaksma and Mark Villarreal that draws inspiration from fossils found in Colorado.