Steggie Goes on Spring Break
Updated: April 7, 2016
On Friday, March 25 Steggie, the Museum’s beloved Stegosaurus sculpture, left for a short break from his usual post outside the Museum’s main entrance. An iconic Cleveland landmark and popular photo opportunity for generations of Museum visitors, Steggie is being refurbished offsite and will get an updated color scheme.
When Steggie returns, he will be adorned with new color palette—replacing his understated green and brown with brighter colors that align his look with what current scientific research supports as being more plausible.
Modern birds are the evolutionary descendants of dinosaurs. Birds are highly social animals that use visual strategies such as bright coloring to communicate with each other for a variety of reasons. Scientists believe that dinosaurs, too, were social and highly visual communicators. For example, a large variety of ornamental features have been discovered across a diverse set of individual dinosaur species. The famous armored back plates of Stegosaurus are one example of such a feature. Similarly, these plates, as well as ornamental features found in other dinosaur species are covered in keratin—much like the beaks, claws and feathers of modern birds. Given these similarities and the evolutionary linkage between birds and dinosaurs, it can be hypothesized that dinosaurs, like birds, could have also developed color strategies to help them communicate within and between species.
The Museum’s Exhibits and Vertebrate Paleontology teams collaborated to create a new look for Steggie that will better coincide with current dinosaur evolutionary understanding.
To conduct this work, the Museum’s Exhibits team has orchestrated a removal and transportation plan in conjunction with Wood-Lee International Art Handlers. A boom truck hoisted the massive sculpture onto a flatbed truck. Steggie was then delivered to Creative Mold & Machine in Newbury.
While Steggie is away, followers of the Museum’s Instagram, Facebook and Twitter accounts can track his travels by searching #WhereisSteggie.
Guests and visitors are also encouraged to share their past and present photos with Steggie by posting them on social media with #SteggieSelfie or emailing them to [email protected].
Learn even more about Steggie’s history and see an archival photo gallery in a recent blog by Museum Librarian and Archivist Wendy Wasman.
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