Dino Lab

BREAKING: Paleontologists excavating beneath the U.S. Capitol have reportedly uncovered what appears to be a long-abandoned Republican spine.

Well after 2 years of hard tedious work 2 of our Stegosaur skulls from the Montana Stegosaur collection have been completed. They are beautiful examples of this species of dinosaur and will certainly add to the scientific sum of knowledge regarding these strange animals. Replicas will be available in the near future. We want to thank our dear friend and preparator Melissa Connely for her wonderful work and dedication to the project. Truly a great job Mel!

From Excavation to Auction: Meet "Apex" the Stegosaurus | Sotheby's On 17 July, as part of the annual Geek Week, Sotheby’s New York is thrilled to present “Apex,” the first instance of an auction house working to bring a dino...

We are happy to announce the launch of the new Judith River Dinosaur Institute website! A celebration of 30 years of great discoveries and people. It took over a year of development and refinement by ourselves and the crack team at Rebel River Marketing. Please check it out and let us know what you think, and be sure to share with your friends and family.

To start your adventure, go to

Judith River Dinosaur Institute | Ultimate Dinosaur Dig Experience For 30+ years the Judith River Dinosaur Institute has brought together earth science pros and amateurs with a fascination for dinosaurs.

Our 2022 Fossil Preparation Classes are going on until April 1. I'm also working on a rare beauty! This is a caudal vertebrae from a Spinosaurus from Morocco. This is a first for me to be able to study and prepare material from this strange dinosaur. Look how long the neural spine is on this beast and its a short one too, from the back of the sail over the tail. We're also preparing a cast of the skull of an adult Spinosaurus four feet long. Cool stuff going on here at the Dino Lab.

A good example of responsible scientific collecting from an experienced commercial firm. Kudos to everyone who worked hard to see that this specimen made it to public research and display.

Meet Horridus, the world's best-preserved and most complete Triceratops T-rex is hacky. Velociraptors are just exaggerated movie monsters. And Brachiosaurus is pretty much just “kind of a big cow.” No, the most discerning of dinosaur-obsessed kids always knew that Triceratops was the coolest. And now, the coolest specimen of this coolest dinosaur has just gone on…

The evolution of a fossil: Discovery to a scientific specimen. Photo Left - Team members are slowly uncovering a large anterior caudal vertebrae of a large sauropod in the quarry. Photo Right - 2 1/2 years later lab tech Dave completes the finishing touches ready for cataloguing. It's not the excavation that takes so much time but rather the hours it takes in the lab preparing it that makes it a research-able specimen. Come join us in the field or the lab to get in on the action.

Just finish removing all the stegosaur fossils from this large plaster jacket. Fossil preparation is slow tedious work and sometimes it seems like you're making little headway. For example, getting this jacket done only to have it refilled with a new old fossil. Good job Jim! 😄

Life was hard in the late Jurassic! We've just about finished preparing these 2 fused caudal/tail vertebrae from an adult Stegosaurus. The vertebrae were located just behind the pelvis at the base of the tail. It is easy to think that because dinosaurs were so large and successful, that they were invincible. In fact they too like us were subject to injury and disease such as massive infections, osteoarthritis and even cancer.

BOO ROAR! We're getting our Halloween decorations up here at the Dino Lab. Have fun everyone and let's be careful out there.