Visitors to Miami Seaquarium can go back in time and deep under sea, or at least feel that way. Savage Ancient Seas, opening March 8, 2019, will transport guests to a North America of 70 million years ago, when the last of the great dinosaurs roamed the Earth and a shallow sea spread across the middle of the continent. It is the spectacular, strange creatures of this sea; giant reptiles, fish, squid, and clams; that are the subject of this exciting exhibition.
In partnership with Triebold Paleontology, Inc., Miami Seaquarium has developed an ancient underwater environment where visitors can experience enormous, vicious sea monsters of the Cretaceous Period. The exhibition includes more than 50 prehistoric marine fossils, both cast and real specimens, mounted in extraordinary three-dimensional displays. The skeletons are mounted dramatically, many suspended from the ceiling above, immersing visitors inside an ancient aquarium of sorts.
The creatures on exhibit include: several mosasaurs (marine lizards which only lived during the Late Cretaceous), including the 45-foot long Bunker Tylosaurus, the largest mosasaur ever discovered in North America; a school of Pachyrhizodus, vicious fish nearly 6 feet long; and Archelon, which with a 17-foot flipper-span is the largest turtle of any kind ever discovered.
Sampling the educational kiosks stationed throughout the exhibition, visitors can learn the story of how these creatures lived, and how most of them appear to have become extinct, along with the dinosaurs. Visitors can also learn how the animals sank to the bottom of the sea when they died, where they were buried in chalky layers of sediment to eventually fossilize.