Photo: Gherdina Museum
A new attraction at the Gherdina Museum: Virtual reality brings life to a ten-meter ichthyosaur.
For more than 100 million years, an animal up to ten meters long, half fish and half lizard ruled the primordial Tethys sea and left no trace. The only remains from the early days of an ichthyosaur were found in Secëda in 1968. Now this unique object has appeared again in the form of a VR experience that will be offered to visitors at the Gherdëina Museum in Ortisei from mid-July.
Fossilized bone remains of a 241-million-year-old ichthyosaur simpospondylus have been part of the Gherderina Museum’s extensive fossil collection since 1986. “The fossil remains are the only find from their age, and they belong to the oldest known specimen of an ichthyosaur in the world,” says Paulina Moroder, director of the museum. “They opened a unique window into a special stage of Earth’s history, the Middle Triassic, in which the later rock formations of the Dolomites began to develop.”
The fossil skeleton of ichthyosaur Val Gardena has only been partially preserved. However, experts around paleontologist Andrea Tintori and ichthyosaur expert Ryosuke Motani, University of California professor of geology, succeeded in reconstructing the dinosaur. So the ichthyosaur was similar to a fish, armed with pointed teeth of marine reptiles reaching a length of six to ten meters.
Visitors to the Gherdëina Museum, embedded in its scientifically reconstructed habitat in the primitive Tethys Sea, can experience the Secëda ichthyosaur up close from July 16, thanks to a virtual reality simulation by ancient biologist and artist Nicola Castelnuovo. “Virtual reality gives our visitors a vivid impression of an ichthyosaur in its marine environment some 240 million years ago, a completely new type of communication that particularly appeals to young audiences,” Moroder says.
Virtual reality simulations of ichthyosaurs and the Tethys Sea from mid-July can be experienced at the Gherdena Museum, initially on a free open day on Friday, July 16, from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. The reconstruction and exhibition was supported by the Rotary Club Bressanone-Brixen, the American Koul Foundation, the Secëda Cable Car, the State Offices of Ladin and Youth Culture as well as Museums and Museum Research.
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