In the Dinosaur Museum Altmühltal, a baby allosaur, which is unique in the world, is now being exhibited. The original skeleton of the youngest representative of this species ever found can now be seen in the museum hall.

There the snappy dinosaur junior (age: about two years) meets the exhibition highlights “Rocky” and “Dracula”. The world's only skeleton of a juvenile Tyrannosaurus Rex and the largest pterosaur ever found have been crowd pullers since the opening of the museum hall in 2018.

Allosaurs are considered the "bad guys" in film history. Whether in "The Lost World" (1925), "Gwangi's Revenge" (1957) or in the films of the Jurassic series (from 1993): the agile predatory dinosaurs are always portrayed as aggressive and dangerous hunters and scavengers.

"This allosaur is another extremely exciting original skeleton," says Michael Völker, founder of the Dinosaur Museum Altmühltal. "We present it at eye level with the visitors, so to speak - a particularly intensive encounter for dinosaur fans. We meet him again on our 1,5 kilometer adventure trail: as a lifelike replica, just as he really moved in his environment back then.” The habitat of the Allosaurus was open landscapes such as light tree savannahs, ferny plains or river meadows. There lived herbivores such as diplodocus or brachiosaurs, the potential prey of the allosaur.

The baby allosaur, which can only be admired here worldwide, is just two years old. The life expectancy of these dinosaurs was generally 20 to 30 years. Why "Little Al" died so young is a mystery. But the paleontologist Raimund Albersdörfer, from whose private collection the animal comes, has a plausible theory: "The site is where there was a water hole 150 million years ago. The large dinosaurs with their long necks probably tried to reach the water from the steep bank. Occasionally one of these giants would slip and slide down the bluff into the waterhole, from which it could not get out. The stench of decay then attracted predatory dinosaurs like "Little Al". Presumably, the little allosaurus jumped into the pit and was either attacked by a larger predatory dinosaur or it was unable to climb up the steep bank and also died in the water.”