The Searle Family Lounge features temporary displays of large collections items you can examine up close (think: dinosaur skull or giant microscope).
Situated in the north balcony overlooking Stanley Field Hall, it’s also one of the Field’s best photo spots—with a flying pterosaur, Máximo the Titanosaur, and Carl Akeley's elephants in-frame. Plus, you can pause on the benches to enjoy an educational video about Field Museum research.
Meet the Quetzalcoatlus
Quetzalcoatlus (ket-zal-co-AHT-lus) is a giant pterosaur from Texas, with wings that stretched 35 feet across. This life-sized model, about as tall as a giraffe, overlooks Stanley Field Hall and offers the perfect selfie-spot.
Quetzalcoatlus is not only the biggest of our three pterosaur species on display, but it also lived the latest in time. These flying reptiles likely coexisted with T. rex at the very end of the Cretaceous, about 67 million years ago. Along with non-avian dinosaurs, pterosaurs went extinct during the end-Cretaceous mass extinction.
Acknowledgments
The Field Museum is grateful to the Searle Family for their support of the Searle Family Lounge.