ISLAND EXCURSION
Fossil fantasy roars to life at museum

By Michael Tsai
Advertiser Staff Writer

"Dino" Don Lessem, creator of "The Dinosaurs of Jurassic Park: The Life and Death of Dinosaurs," oversees the installation of the exhibit at the Bishop Museum. Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser 'The Dinosaurs of Jurassic Park: The Life and Death of Dinosaurs' Opening Saturday 9 a.m.-5 p.m. daily through Sept. 15 Castle Hall, Bishop Museum Admission to the museum, which includes the "Jurassic" exhibit: $14.95 general, $11.95 for kids 4-12 and seniors, free for kids under 4 and museum members; military, kama'aina rates available 847-3511

"The Dinosaurs of Jurassic Park: The Life and Death of Dinosaurs" opens Saturday, featuring the world's largest traveling display of skeletons and fossils as well as models, sets and props from the "Jurassic Park" film series.

The collection is a curious mix of hard science and fluff fantasy.

"That one is too fat," says "Dino" Don Lessem as he gestures toward a particularly portly pachycephalosaur. His finger moves to another "Jurassic" star, a raptor. "That one is too small."

Lessem, who has expressed his fascination with dinosaurs through a range of media, served as a consultant on the "Jurassic" films and created the traveling exhibit. He says the physiological accuracy of the models was compromised a bit by the film company's desire to brand its own dinosaur renderings, and by inaccuracies in Michael Crichton's "Jurassic Park" novel, upon which the film series was based.

But, as Lessem notes, part of the appeal of dinosaurs is their capacity to excite imaginative fantasy and intellectual curiosity. His exhibit is designed to do likewise.

Visitors are greeted by a display featuring dinosaur models from the movies recast from the original molds. Elsewhere on the first floor are video stations that illustrate what was invented for the movies and what is known about the dinosaurs.

The exhibit also features rare casts of several new-found dinosaur skeletons, a room-size 'dig' pit for would-be paleontologists and other interactive displays.

As he always does, Lessem oversaw the installation of the exhibit at Bishop Museum. He said Castle Hall, with its split levels and large atrium-like opening on the second floor, provided some inspiring challenges.

"It's not just a big square, which a lot of exhibition areas are," he said. "There are some things that we can't install, but there is also a lot of space for us to change things around. That keeps it fresh for us."

In fact, Lessem found the the gaping second-floor opening to be a perfect place to suspend a massive reconstructed pterosaur.

The flying reptile wasn't in the "Jurassic" films, so Lessem and his crew were able to build it with painstaking accuracy, from its 60-foot wing span to the hair that covered its body.

"Most people don't know that they had hair," Lessem said proudly.

In the past several years, the Bishop Museum has cultivated a broad kid clientele with a parade of dinosaur exhibits. This one, Lessem said, is unique.

"The key difference with this exhibit is that we have more real dinosaurs," Lessem said. "We have skeletons from 25 different dinosaurs. Some of them are cast, but in many cases, they're the only casts."

Lessem, a former journalist with a background in animal behavior, said he rekindled a childhood passion for dinosaurs while reporting on dinosaur digs in Mongolia and Alaska. Since then, he's founded the Jurassic Foundation, the largest nonprofit organization for dinosaur research. Part of the profits from the exhibit is donated to support the foundation, which has already contributed more than $1.5 million to research projects worldwide.

Lessem's interest in dinosaurs has been sustained by the rapid rate of dinosaur discoveries in the past 20 years. He's especially excited about two recent discoveries: Giganto-saurus, a meat-eater even larger than Tyrannosaurus rex; and Argentinasaurus, the largest sauropod. Lessem's daughter, Rebecca, helped unearth a bone belonging to the latter.

"When I was growing up, there were only half as many dinosaurs that we knew about," he said. "It's all changed."