Richmond Children's Museum welcomes Virginia's only T. rex skeleton, Stan
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
Meet Stan, Richmond's newest resident from somewhere else. And a long, long time ago. Image: Courtesy of the Children's Museum of Richmond.
Stan — a 1,100-lb., 40-foot-long T. rex replica — has moved into the Children's Museum of Richmond.
Why it matters: He's one of just 10 life-sized replicas of a nearly complete Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton nationwide, and the only one in Virginia.
State of play: Like any newish Richmonder, Stan hails from somewhere else.
- In his case: South Dakota, where the Black Hills Institute of Geological Research, Inc. and a paleontologist named Stan Sacrison unearthed his remains roughly 30 years ago.
- The Institute created around 30 life-sized replicas of Stan's 65-million-year-old fossils, including the one in Richmond.
Zoom in: Our Stan came to Richmond in 2021, when education firm Great Minds moved its corporate headquarters from D.C. to the Sauer Center and brought him along.
But like any true Richmond transplant, after four years in a "new bustling neighborhood," Stan moved this week into his long-established Richmond home: Inside CMoR's 25-year-old Broad Street museum.
- (Great Minds moved out of Sauer for remote-only offices in June, per BizSense.)
And now Stan's GRTC-bus-length skeleton is on display where all of Richmond can meet him, Tuesday-Sunday, 9:30am-5pm.
- Museum admission is $12.
Fun fact: The OG Stan sold for $32 million at auction in 2020, making it the most expensive dinosaur fossil ever.
- He now lives at the natural history museum in Abu Dhabi.