When fossils travel: What it took to move a 150-million-year-old Stegosaurus

Stegosaurus on the move again (Rep. Image)

The American Museum of Natural History twice moved “Apex,” an unusually complete Stegosaurus skeleton, to balance public display with serious science. First assembled in December 2024 in the Richard Gilder Center, the 11-foot-tall, 27-foot-long mount drew crowds but lacked interpretive context and time for deep study. In September, the museum disassembled the skeleton and rehoused it near the main fossil halls, where it could be presented with richer labels, comparisons and newly captured research data, according to a report in the New York Times.

Why the move mattered

Apex is on long-term loan and preserves roughly 80 percent of an estimated 320 bones—remarkable completeness for a late-Jurassic Stegosaurus. The first installation was a sprint from auction to atrium, which meant visitors saw the spectacle before curators could build the education around it. The second installation corrects that sequence: the mount now sits beside AMNH’s established dinosaur galleries, allowing staff to explain anatomy, history and context alongside icons like T. rex and the titanosaur.

Opening a research window

Disassembly created a rare, time-boxed opportunity to document every bone. Jason Cooper, the commercial palaeontologist who discovered Apex in Colorado’s Moffat County, lifted each fossil from its custom armature and packed it into foam-lined wooden crates. Curator Roger Benson and researcher Robert Smyth captured high-resolution structured-light scans, infrared images to separate original bone from restorations, and CT slices of key elements. With the owner’s permission, a small section from the 45-inch femur was sampled to read growth layers—tree-ring-like bands that reveal age and growth rate.

What the bones may tell us

Early examination suggests Apex was a large, older individual with fused vertebrae and no obvious signs of predation or scavenging. That clean preservation makes it a strong reference for questions that still shadow stegosaurs: how quickly they grew, how long they lived, and how their bones changed with age. The data set—3-D models, imaging and measurements—will be shared so palaeontologists beyond New York can test ideas about life history and compare Apex with smaller or younger specimens.

From crates back to gallery

The logistics were brisk. Cooper’s three-person team needed less than two days to disassemble the mount and the same to rebuild it upstairs, with the month between devoted to scanning and analysis. The new fourth-floor location, adjacent to AMNH’s fossil halls, lets visitors see Apex in the company of related material and gives educators room for clearer labels, diagrams and comparisons. The result is the same “wow” factor, but anchored to explanations that make the skeleton more than a silhouette.

Display, access and the longer view

Because Apex is privately owned, capturing permanent digital records was essential. High-quality scans and imaging ensure that, even if the loan ends, the scientific value remains available to researchers. For the public, the move means a stronger narrative: how a skeleton is discovered, mapped, prepared, mounted, questioned and reinterpreted—often more than once. Apex is scheduled to remain on view through late 2028, with the possibility of an extended loan.

Why it matters

Stegosaurus is familiar, but its life story still has gaps. A nearly complete, well-preserved skeleton can close some of them, not by settling famous debates in one stroke, but by tightening the evidence researchers rely on. By moving Apex, AMNH traded a quick debut for a deeper conversation—one that elevates a spectacular mount into a lasting scientific resource while giving visitors a clearer sense of how museums think, test and learn.