Life-size dinos meet real-world conservation in this interactive zoo experience.
Life-size dinos meet real-world conservation in this interactive zoo experience.
Auckland Zoo’s latest attraction might raise a few eyebrows – it might also raise a few hairs on the back of your neck, too!
The Dinosaur Discovery Track, a limited-time experience, is welcoming and wowing visitors over winter.
Twenty-five full-scale animatronic dinosaurs made by world-renowned dinosaur creators The Dinosaur Company, lead viewers on a journey through time exploring topics relevant to ecology today – extinction, adaptation and conservation. These are issues many of our endemic species confront on a daily basis and there’s lots to learn from history on this subject.
Discovery Track is welcoming and wowing visitors over winter 2025.
Auckland Zoo director Kevin Buley says that despite their extinction 65 million years ago, dinosaurs still intrigue and fascinate us today.
“For many of us, including me, dinosaurs are a gateway that lead to a life-long connection to nature and to conservation,” Buley said.
“We hope to inspire new audiences about not just extinct species, we also want to get them excited and motivated about all those wildlife species that are still with us, and now desperately need our help to stop them going the way of the dinosaurs and disappearing forever.”
A Gigantosaurus is part of the new exhibit.
The dinosaur track is located in Burma the elephant’s old home, opening up this part of the zoo for the first time since she packed her trunk and moved to Australia.
Nineteen different species feature among the life-size creatures that move, roar and even spit water. Kids young and old can also get up close with a Pachyrhinosaurus, a species currently in the news after the Philip J Currie Dinosaur Museum in Canada revealed how thousands of the animals died in a single day at Pipestone Creek.
While Pachyrhinosaurus was a herbivore, more scary flesh-eating monsters are featured including the Baryonyx and everyone’s favourite, the Tyrannosaurus (T-Rex).
The experience highlights modern conservation through the lens of extinction.
There’s also a chance to be a real-life palaeontologist taking part in digs, and more up-to-date elements using interactive and digital media. Dinosaur Rangers roam the track, too, and are “boned-up” on these creatures that lived between 252-66 million years ago.
Who thought a trip to the zoo could also include time travel?
The Dinosaur Discovery Track is on at Auckland Zoo until October.
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