The China Science and Technology Museum is preparing to welcome the nation's largest fossilized dinosaur at its new site. In two days, the dinosaur will arrive at the 48,000-square-meter exhibition center, The Beijing News reported on August 13.

The China Science and Technology Museum is preparing to welcome the nation's largest fossilized dinosaur at its new site. In two days, the dinosaur will arrive at the 48,000-square-meter exhibition center that will open to the public next month, The Beijing News reported on August 13.

The 27-meter-long giant, formally called Chuanjiesaurus, is a present from Chuxiong Yi Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan Province. It will be presented along with two other relics, the Lufeng dinosaur and Dilophosauridae, a rare, early carnivore. The fossils are gifts for the new establishment of the museum, which is adjacent to the Bird's Nest. It is scheduled to open to the public on September 16.

Packed into 15 boxes, the bones of the dinosaurs are being flown via a chartered plane on August 14, with several experts onboard for special care. Museum employees have set up steel frames on the second floor of the central hall of the museum to hold the fossils, which are numbered and will be reassembled on August 15.

Requiring special preservation techniques, the fossils are being relocated with great care. The room must be ventilated in order to maintain low levels of humidity, and gentle, shock-proof transportation is necessary due to the bones' fragility.

The China Science and Technology Museum closed its 21-year-old venue located at the north of the Third Ring Road last month. The new site will have more cutting-edge exhibitions that feature the latest scientific discoveries. But the admission price will remain the same.

(China.org.cn by Wu Jin, August 13, 2009)