Smithsonian.com

The Walking With Dinosaurs live show has raised the bar for dinosaur puppetry, and numerous museums and theme parks have begun to feature their own resident dinosaurs to enthrall their guests. On the inventively educational side of the spectrum are shows like the Utah Museum of Natural History’s “Live From Laramidia” program, but the dinosaurs of Sydney, Australia’s Wildlife World—seen in the video above—fall toward the pure entertainment side. These two dinosaurs, which are of the same design as two of the Walking With Dinosaurs puppets, are realistic enough that some of the children in the outdoor audience seem reticent about taking them for a walk, and (until you see the legs of the performers) it can be easy to believe that these dinosaurs are real. How long will it be until even more realistic dinosaurs—with no sign of their human puppeteers—will start stalking audiences?