Larger than life: the installation of “Fred” at Maropeng – photo essay
December 15, 2010
A fanged friend named “Fred” is enthralling visitors to Maropeng this holiday season. “Fred”, a 260-million-year-old skeleton of Tapinocaninus pamelae, a genus of therapsid, is on display at the Maropeng Visitor Centre, alongside a reconstructed, life-size model of the land-living reptile.
“Fred” is part of a fascinating new fossil display at Maropeng that includes hominid fossils, bone tools and dinosaur eggs from the Bernard Price Institute and the Institute for Human Evolution, both based at the University of the Witwatersrand. The institutes are at the forefront of research in the field of palaeosciences in Southern Africa, and Maropeng represents the interface between the research the institutes publish and the public.
The original skeleton of “Fred” took 24 years to expose, and this is the first time it is on public display. It took more than 10 men to transport the gigantic pre-dinosaur, which weighs almost a ton, and three days to install him.
The following photo essay includes images from the installation process:
“Fred” being unloaded from the truck
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