Comments on: A Triceratops at the National Zoo

By: Dino Dave

Dino Dave — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 15:52:04 +0000

Uncle Beazley is a celebrity for anyone who grew up in the DC area and regularly visited the Mall. He sat in the Mall under some trees right in front of the Museum of Natural History when I was a kid in the late 60s-early 70s. It was immense then and the challenge was to climb onto his back before a cop told you to get down. I was crushed when I came back years later and he was gone. Uncle Beazley has a twin – or at least did 20 years ago – outside a museum in Niagra Falls, Canada. I climbed onto that one, too, just as an adult. No cops in sight.

By: Malnurtured Snay » Dinosaur Island

Malnurtured Snay » Dinosaur Island — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 22:09:01 +0000

[...] It was big, and people could climb it. It was fun sitting right behind that big crest. It’s a real object, now on display at — of all places — The National [...]

By: Uncle Beazley Returns to the National Zoo | Around The Mall

Uncle Beazley Returns to the National Zoo | Around The Mall — Tue, 03 May 2011 18:25:51 +0000

[...] book, and, until recently, resided in the back of the Zoo, near the hospital. Give up? It’s “Uncle Beazley,” the beloved Smithsonian Institution triceratops who has been making his way around the Mall for [...]

By: Fossil Bonanza in Australian Cave Documents the Growth of a Prehistoric Marsupial « Brian Switek

Sun, 08 Aug 2010 13:37:25 +0000

[...] and bloggers misconstrued the findings and wailed that scientists were taking away their beloved "Uncle Beazley" – in some cases, saying that Triceratops "never existed" – and it took a few days for the truth of [...]

By: Naill

Naill — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 06:17:24 +0000

That triceratops was part of my childhood… A trip into the city was never complete without stopping in front of the Natural History Museum. My siblings and cousins and I spent so many happy hours riding on the dinosaur’s back, or between the horns, and sliding down the tail… The funny thing, though, is that although we’d all read The Enormous Egg, none of us made the connection; nothing at the time (in the 1970s) announced that this was Uncle Beazley. It was just a life-size, very accurate-seeming model of a triceratops. I had no idea it had been moved until about 1990-91, when I visited the Zoo for the first time in ages and saw it in, I think, an enclosure near the hippos. It was inaccessible to visitors, which made me sort of sad; although I don’t know how well Uncle Beazley would hold up under a few more generations of children sliding down his tail (his outer surface was already beginning to rub off in spots when I was a kid), a life-size dinosaur replica really seems to be made for children to play with. It’s a pity they only made one.

By: Gray Stanback

Gray Stanback — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 23:20:11 +0000

Doesn’t The Enormous Egg say at one point that birds and dinosaurs might be related? If so, this might be the oldest reference to that in popular culture there is!

By: Margaret

Margaret — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 01:56:00 +0000

I am reading the Enormous Egg to my kids right now and wanted to find out if there was a sculpture of it in DC. I had Oliver Butterworth as my freshman English professor in college- What an amazing man and what a treat to be in his class.

By: Allen Nyhuis

Allen Nyhuis — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 01:57:24 +0000

Many zoos have these special dinosaur exhibits at times, which are great for kids — especially boys.

I love the National Zoo! It has so much to see, including the famous giant pandas, great birdhouse, reptiles, small mammals, and so much more.

Allen Nyhuis
Coauthor, America’s Best Zoos

By: Glendon Mellow

Glendon Mellow — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 21:51:12 +0000

I love The Enormous Egg! Ooo, where’s that old copy…one to read to my nephew!

By: Dom

Dom — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 14:38:47 +0000

I’ve been to the national zoo many times, and just noticed this last weekend. For those of you who haven’t been there, it’s right across from a turtle pond, not too far away from the prairie dogs.