Making Máximo the Titanosaur

On May 21, 2018, a very special delivery arrived at the Field: Máximo the Titanosaur. Our exhibitions staff and a team from Museo Paleontológico Egidio Feruglio (MEF) carefully unloaded the cast of Patagotitan mayorum, a long-necked, plant-eating titanosaur that’s the biggest of the sauropod dinosaurs. Our Patagotitan cast had traveled many miles from Patagonia, Argentina, in multiple pieces that filled up two shipping containers.

Working bone by bone—with some sections weighing literally one ton—the team used two forklifts, five pallet jacks, ratchet straps, chains, and more to get the 122-foot titanosaur skeleton safely into our loading dock. A special crane lifted the longest and heaviest section of vertebrae through our front door.