Chicago, IL – Field Museum of Natural History

 The Field Museum in Chicago is, hands down, one of the best museums I’ve ever been to. Its most famous resident is “Sue,” one of the largest Tyrannosaurus skeletons in the world…but it also boasts several other incredible specimens, including the Parasaurolophus holotype, as well as this beautiful Stegosaurus. It’s a very sleek looking example of the species, which is showcased even more by the old painting behind it. This illustration shows how dinosaurs were presented when I was a kid. They were generally portrayed as slow, lumbering creatures that weren’t very bright. Now science has come to believe that they were huge, fast animals, capable of high intelligence, as well as caring, protective parents when it came to their young.

Stegosaurus, of course, was probably not the brightest of the bunch considering the extremely small brain cavity of their skulls. Still, this sleek and streamlined skeleton shows a creature that was more built to survive in a kill-or-be-killed world than our original illustrations would suggest.