DAYTONA BEACH — Even before you enter the new “Expedition: Dinosaur” exhibit at Daytona’s Museum of Arts & Sciences, discordant sounds of prehistoric creatures echo across the museum’s lobby.
“That’s the velociraptors,” said Zach Zacharias, the museum’s senior curator of history. “It really sounds kind of like a parrot, a very mean parrot.”
“Expedition: Dinosaur,” which opens on Saturday, Oct. 11, offers an immersive exhibit that showcases more than a dozen life-like animatronic dinosaurs, hands-on interactive experiences, virtual reality effects, fossil digs and other activities for all ages.
The exhibit, which runs through March 29, 2026, occupies roughly 10,000 square feet of the museum. That encompasses the museum’s L. Gale Lemerand Wing, the adjoining Mary Louise Marzullo Gallery as well as the Charles and Linda Williams Children’s Museum.
To accommodate the dinosaurs, everything that had been on display in the Children’s Museum has been decommissioned and donated to Daytona State College, said Jonna Royer, the museum’s chief advancement officer.
It’s among the first steps of an upcoming transformation of the museum into a very modern, high-tech institution more streamlined and connected to the 21st century, announced this week by museum officials.
Museum upgrades funded by $150M donation from Cici and Hyatt Brown
A plan for the museum unveiled at a gala event a year ago calls for longtime museum supporters and philanthropists Cici and Hyatt Brown to donate up to $150 million and other donors to give an additional $25 million.
A more detailed revelation of those plans is slated for December, before the main museum building and Cici & Hyatt Brown Museum of Art close down at the end of March to prepare for the project’s groundbreaking in fall 2026.
Only the planetarium will remain partially open for a limited number of events.
Until the scheduled reopening of the reimagined museum campus in the fall of 2028, some museum collections and planetarium items could temporarily be on display at the Ocean Center, Daytona Beach Shores Recreation Center, Brannon Center in New Smyrna Beach and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, according to museum officials.
‘Expedition: Dinosaur’ joins other exhibits at Museum of Arts & Sciences
Using the Children’s Museum space to accommodate “Expedition: Dinosaur” made sense due to the timing of the transitions related to the project, Royer said.
“We had the opportunity to bring in this show, so we went ahead and did the decommissioning (of the Children’s Museum) now,” Royer said at a media preview on Friday, Oct. 10. “We still have so much going on here.”
Additional exhibits include “Bugs Outside the Box: Discover the Art Within the Sciences” at the museum’s Karshan Center of Graphic Art and Thurman Gillespy, Jr. Gallery; and “Shoosty Bugs: An Art Infestation” at the L. Gale Lemerand Wing & the Elaine and Thurman Gillespy Jr. Gallery.
‘Exhibition: Dinosaur’ melds science history, technology at MOAS
Highlights of the new “Expedition: Dinosaur” include a towering animatronic Albertosaurus, a two-legged predator with short arms, a keen sense of smell, binocular vision and powerful bite force that lived 70 million years ago in the late Cretaceous period.
Nearby, another display recounts the story of Roy Chapman Andrews (1884-1960), an American explorer and naturalist who has been described as real-life version of “Raiders of the Lost Ark” movie hero Indiana Jones.
In 1923, he became the first scientist to unearth a clutch of dinosaur eggs during a series of expeditions via automobiles and camel caravans through the Gobi Dessert and Mongolia.
Modern dinosaur hunts are represented by a display with video from Tom Williamson, curator of paleontology at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science.
Elsewhere, life-like replicas of familiar dinosaur species such as Triceratops and Stegosaurus share the spotlight with lesser-known creatures that include the Carnotaurus, the only meat-eating dinosaur known to have horns, in the form of six-inch bone protrusions above its eyes.
In the re-purposed Children’s Museum space, there are an assortment of hands-on activities, including the opportunity for young visitors to color their own dinosaur. The budding artists can then watch a digital version of the creation emerge via an oversized virtual reality claymation-style screen.
Likewise, a virtual reality sandbox offers the chance to learn how Earth’s climate has changed through time.
What you need to know about visiting ‘Expedition: Dinosaur’ at Museum of Arts & Sciences
Admission to “Expedition: Dinosaur” is included for the museum’s regular admission of $19 adults; $17 for seniors and college students (with ID); $10 ages 6-17; and free admission for ages 5 and younger, as well as museum members.
Hours are Monday-Saturday 10 a.m.–5 p.m. Monday-Saturday; 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday.
Visit moas.org for more information.
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: New ‘Expedition Dinosaur’ offers Jurassic journey at Daytona’s Museum of Arts & Sciences
Reporting by Jim Abbott, Daytona Beach News-Journal / The Daytona Beach News-Journal
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
