New permanent displays for dinosaurs and mammals are two highlights of Toronto, Canada's Royal Ontario Museum.

Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum will be giving New York's American Museum of Natural History and Chicago's Field Museum a run for their money this holiday season. On December 15 and 16, 2007, the entire second floor of the ROM's prism-shaped Michael Lee-Chin Crystal will be given over to a pair of new permanent installations: the James and Louise Temerty Galleries of the Age of the Dinosaurs and Age of Mammals.

The grand institution's tallest prehistoric specimens will inhabit 1450 square metres (15,600 square feet) of light-filled galleries with a ceiling reaching 5.4 metres (18 feet), allowing for state-of-the-art exhibition of the ROM's more than 750 artifacts, 50 being those of dinosaurs (30 complete or nearly intact skeletons) and some 30 additional mammalian fossils.

Dinosaurs

The Age of the Dinosaurs installation commences with the Mesozoic Era (650 to 250 million years ago). Its Life on Land and Life in the Sea presentations exhibit remains from the Jurassic (200 to 145 million years ago) and Cretaceous (145 to 65 million years ago) periods. Attention is paid to the evolution of birds, dinosaurs' extinction and the early development of mammals. Highlights include fossils of marine reptiles, a Hadrosaur, the ROM's famous Parasaurolophus, the complete skeletal cast of a Tyrannosaurus rex and an authentic Triceratops skull.

Mammals

The neighboring Age of Mammals gallery features various sections devoted to: life on Earth after the dinosaurs; continental drift; the Cenozoic Era (65 million years ago to the present); and the planet's two Ice Ages. The fossils of plants, insects, corals, fish, turtles and smaller creatures, preserved in natural materials such as amber and tree resin, conclude the ROM's innovative presentation.

The ROM, Its Expansion and Recent Special Exhibitions

The Royal Ontario Museum, founded in 1912, is devoted to the study of archaeology, past and present civilizations, geology, minerology, paleontology and zoology. Artifacts and works of art from ancient Egypt and Cyprus, the Bronze Age Aegean, Korea, China, Japan,and Canada are major attractions. In 2001, a $270 million plan called Renaissance ROM allowed for the expansion and transformation of the museum's campus under the aegis of world-famous architect Daniel Liebeskind. His steel-and-glass Michael Lee-Chin Crystal was awarded the Canadian Institute of Steel Construction's 2007 Award of Merit on May 16, 2007.

In recent years, the ROM has collaborated with museums worldwide in presenting to the Canadian public shows about ancient civilizations. These have included Eternal Egypt: Masterworks of Ancient Art from The British Museum (2004) and Ancient Peru Unearthed: Golden Treasures of a Lost Civilization (2007).