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Royal Tyrrell Museum. Photo by Carolyn Miaral on

Top 10 Facts about Royal Tyrrell Museum

The Royal Tyrrell Museum is a paleontology museum and research facility in Drumheller, Alberta, Canada. 

The provincial government in 1981 announced an effort to establish a paleontology museum with a paleontology program. The provincial museum of Alberta spun off to help facilitate the creation of a paleontology museum.

The museum is located on North Dinosaur trail at a midland provincial park in Drumheller, Alberta, and is situated within a 135,000 Sq. ft.

Once you visit the museum, you will be taken through a trip of time, the history of the earth with the dinosaur age, and exhibits which includes the Cenozoic gallery, cretaceous Alberta, Paleozoic era, and terrestrial paleozoic.

This article will discover the top 10 facts about the Royal Tyrrell Museum and its intriguing history.

1. The museum was named in honor of Joseph Burr Tyrrell

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Joseph was a Canadian geologist, cartographer, and mining consultant. In 1884 he discovered dinosaur bones in Alberts badlands and coal around Drumheller. Therefore the museum was named in his honor.

The capital cost of the provincially funded museum is $ 30 million. The museum was officially opened to the public on September 25, 1985.

Most of the specimens in the museum were acquired in the early 1980s when the institution was provided with a large acquisition budget in preparation for its opening.

On 28 June 1990, the museum attained the name 鈥渞oyal鈥� after it was bestowed the title by Queen Elizabeth II. This added another level of prominence to the museum.

  2. The Calgary- BCW Architect designed the original building

The lead architect was Doug Craig. Later the design was left to Craig, who was given a list of 27 architectural requirements from the museum directors.

These requirements included the necessity to harmonize the building with the surrounding badlands.

Craig was to make the entrance easy to locate by routing the driveway to the front of the building and providing adequate space for visitors to adjust to the light outside and inside the building.

The main structure includes several galleries with interactive displays, a cafeteria, gift shops, and a theatre.

The museum’s main lobby features a Mural made of ten 1.2 by 2.4 meters ceramic panels titled The story of life. Lorraine Malach crafted the mural.

3. The museum underwent several expansions

The museum contracted BCW architects again to help design the ATCO Tyrrell learning center, a 1,485 sq meter annex to the main museum.

In 2003 the ATCO Tyrrell learning center was completed, and it includes several classrooms with distance learning technology to allow researchers to connect with field sites and a laboratory remotely.

The BCW designed the ATCO Tyrrell learning center to accommodate students from elementary to post-secondary levels of education.

The learning Longue was completed in 2019, adding 14,000 sq ft to the main building. The learning lounge expansion was designed by Kasian architecture, along with the museum and the government of Alberta.

The LEAR construction, a Calgary-based construction firm, undertook the construction. The expansion saw a distance learning studio and accessible washroom enlarged, an additional classroom, laboratory space, interactive learning lounge, and rest area.

4. The museum is a paleontology museum

The museum is a center of excellence, highlighting Alberta’s paleontological significance in a global context, preserving and displaying fossils of the Albertans.

Its widely dedicated to studying ancient life and offers a wide variety of creative, fun, and educational programs that bring the prehistoric past to life.

At the preparation laboratory, you can watch expert technicians working on fossils on fossils to get ready for research and exhibit.

5. Fossil casting

Royal Tyrrell Museum Fossil Lab. Photo by Sebastian Bergmann on

Fossil casting is a popular program at Royal Tyrrell Museum. The casting program creates replicas of specimens from its collection, providing them for use in other museums.

Once you visit, you have an opportunity to learn how molds and casts are made and examine real fossils. The cast and molds are made using a simple chemical reaction.

The instructors are fabulous at the fossil casting area, which is good for students as they indulge in the activities. The instructors ensure students are riveted for the entire session.

6. Royal Tyrrell museum Dinosaur hall

Both sides of a superb Triceratops, Dinosaur Hall, Royal Tyrrell Museum. Photo by Mike Beauregard on

Dinosaurs are the number one attraction and the main reason people visit. The great dinosaur hall features over 30 mounted dinosaur skeletons.

The Royal Tyrrell museum dinosaur hall houses one of the world’s largest display of dinosaurs display.

The hall has everything from the easily recognizable herbivore Triceratops to the giant Camarasaurus and the mighty Tyrannosaurus rex. Dinosaur hall excites the dinosaur enthusiast in everyone.

The Tyrannosaurus rex is a formidable predator with large, robust teeth, strong jaws, forward-facing eyes, and a keen sense of smell.

7. Explore the Royal Tyrrell museum collection

As of 2020, the museum collection held over 350 holotypes and approximately 160,000 cataloged fossils. Making the museum the largest fossil collection in Canada.

The museum collection holds five Guinness World Records due to its unique collection of fossils. The museum has the best-preserved Berealopelta and Albertanects fossils with the largest neck records.

Most collections are used for research or museum exhibits, and approximately 6.5% are displayed in the museums’ exhibits.

Half of the items at the museum are fossils dating back to the cretaceous period. The majority of these fossils originate from Alberta, with 85% of the fossils from the province being collected from the museum fieldwork.

The museum holds many fossils from the paleocene of Alberta, the paleozoic of the Canadian arctic, and the paleozoic Triassic and early Cretaceous of British Columbia.

The museum gets collections through donations, exchanges, purchases, industrial excavation, and paleontologists archiving their works at the museum. Approximately 3,000 specimens are added to the collection annually.

8. The Royal Tyrrell museum research program

The research program has a broad mandate to document and analyze geological and paleontology history concerning Alberta, with most research-based in Alberta.

The museum research program includes a paleontological research group, rotating postdoctoral fellows, and a graduate student roster. Findings from the research program are regularly incorporated into the museums’ exhibits and educational outreach programs.

In the early 1980s, when the research team was founded, it was tasked with searching for a specimen for the museum’s exhibit and collection.

The museum researchers were reoriented towards documenting and interpreting the geology and fossils of Midland provincial park, provincial dinosaur part, and other areas in the province.

The museum conducted several research collaborations with other institutions, including the geological survey of Canada, the institute of vertebrate paleontology and palaeoanthropology, and other museums in Alberta.

9. Extended summer hours

During the summer months, the museum extends its hours into the evening, seven days a week, including holidays.

The extended hours allow you to escape the blazing midday badlands summer heat and experience a quieter time at the museum.

During summer, visiting the Royal Tyrrell Museum is a good idea; you have more time to participate in programs and go at your own pace.

10. The Royal Tyrrell museum exhibit

Albertosaurus skeletal mount On display at the Royal Tyrrell Museum. Photo outsourced from

The museum building houses thirteen exhibits with around 800 fossils on permanent display. The interactive audio-visual computers, video programs, and displays provide relevant information on the Hems in the exhibit.

Most exhibits are organized by geological eras, displaying specimens and dioramas from those periods.

Several exhibits are also bearing deposits, such as the Bargress shape exhibits. Other exhibits that display specimens from the museum鈥檚 fossils collection include the Triassic giants and dinosaur hall.