Glasgow will face off with a new dinosaur as T. rex comes to town

The T.rex skeleton, the only real one on tour anywhere in the world, will greet visitors in attack mode, with her ferocious teeth and enormous head mounted at eye level, when it goes on display at Glasgow’s Kelvin Hall.

The 67-million-year-old T.rex female is 39-foot long, around 13 feet high, weighs five tonnes and is nicknamed Trix.

The ‘T.rex in Town’ exhibition is touring European cities while she waits for a new museum building to be completed at Naturalis Biodiversity Centre in her home city of Leiden, in the Netherlands.

Glasgow is the final stop for Trix’s tour of Europe. Her Scottish visit will be the first and only stop outside mainland Europe. She has already visited Salzburg, Austria; Barcelona, Spain; Paris, France; and Lisbon, Portugal.

She will travel from her home in the Netherlands to Glasgow to go on display in the city from April 18 to July 31.

This is another major dinosaur coup for Glasgow as Trix’s visit comes just weeks after Dippy the Diplodocus skeleton cast went on display at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum just a stone’s throw from Kelvin Hall.

And for a few short weeks, both Dippy and Trix will be in Glasgow at the same time as Dino-fever turns the west end of the city into Scotland’s Dino-quarter.

The exhibition has been organised by The Hunterian at the University of Glasgow and Glasgow Museums and has been supplied by Naturalis Biodiversity Centre.

Steph Scholten, director of The Hunterian, said: “Trix is a superb example of one of the world’s best preserved T.rex skeletons. Her arrival in Scotland will be a unique opportunity to see up close a real T.rex which is one of the fiercest predators to have ever lived.

“I am so looking forward to welcoming visitors to Kelvin Hall and see their reaction to the sheer size and scale of Trix. I can tell you, having gone nose to nose with this 67- million-year-old fossil myself, that this is an experience not to be missed.

“Through our strong partnerships both with Glasgow Museums and with European institutions we have been able to ensure that Trix was able to visit Scotland on her first and only British tour date.

“This is a major coup for Glasgow – with two dinosaurs, Trix and Dippy, visiting our city at the same time for a short while. Dino-fever will take over the west end of Glasgow as the city becomes the dinosaur capital of Scotland.”

Dr Neil Clark, the Hunterian’s curator of Palaeontology, said: “Trix was around 30 when she died – making her the oldest T.rex found to date. She is also one of the most complete T. rex fossil’s known and Trix may in fact be able to trace her ancestry back to the Middle Jurassic of Scotland.

“It seems very fitting to welcome our dinosaur cousin to Scotland.”

For more information, visit www.kelvinhall.org.uk/trex/.