A unique and major attraction of the Dunn Museum is a life-sized Dryptosaurus dinosaur. From her position at the entrance to the Dunn Museum, she is posed to welcome every visitor who enters. No other institution in the world has one like it. This replica is both a work of art and a contribution to science. 

A small tyrannosaur that roamed Lake County approximately 67 million years ago, the predatory Dryptosaurus is a 20-foot-long bipedal, ground-dwelling carnivore. Our exhibit designers worked with paleontologists at Yale University and with Chicago paleoartist Tyler Keillor to create the world's first scientifically accurate, fleshed-out Dryptosaurus, complete with protofeathers, razor-sharp teeth, and large 8-inch-long eagle-clawed talons.

Paleoartist Tyler Keillor worked from his Chicago area home to create our Dryptosaurus. These photos depict the process, from concept to completion, which took Keillor over a year to build. For a 2009 exhibit we created titled Prehistoric Lake County, Keillor built us this Dryptosaurus head. Now we have the whole body.

About Tyler Keillor

Paleoartist

Tyler Keillor is an award-winning paleoartist who has been preparing fossils, creating skeletal restorations and sculpting flesh reconstructions of prehistoric life at the University of Chicago and many other institutions since 2001. A lifelong love of natural history and a mission to combine art and science have driven Tyler as he continues to create paleontological reconstructions for researchers, museums, exhibitions, publishers, filmmakers and collectors around the world. Through his work he seeks to inspire wonder and learning in the viewer, as well as to honor the mysterious, extinct life forms he is called to restore. See more of his work »