Guinness confirms world's largest dinosaur museum in China

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Tianyu Museum of Nature in Pingyi County,Shangdong province.[Photo source: www.baidu.com]

A dinosaur museum in east China's Shandong Province has been confirmed by Guinness World Records as the largest of its kind in the world, a museum official said.

The Shangdong Tianyu Museum of Nature in Pingyi County, which opened in 2004 and is devoted to dinosaur and other prehistoric fauna, applied for a Guinness World Record in early June and received the confirmation Monday, said Yin Shiyin, deputy curator of the museum.

"It contains 28,000 square meters (301,389 sq ft) of exhibition space, housing 1,106 dinosaur specimens and thousands of other ancient fossils," the London-based agency said in a certificate to confirm it as the world's largest dinosaur museum.

The dinosaur specimens are all represented by almost complete skeletons, including 368 psittacosaurid specimens, 391 dromaeosaurid specimens, 255 Anchiornis specimens, 22 Jeholosaurus specimens, and 70 other rare dinosaurs and unnamed dinosaur fossils, the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences said in a certification document.

Moreover, the Tianyu museum had tens of thousands of other ancient fossils, such as birds and fish fossils, the institute said.

Before the new record, the museum had five other world records, including the longest silicified wood fossil, the biggest Sinosauropteryx fossil, the biggest amethyst cave, Yin said.

A ceremony to mark the recognition as the world's largest dinosaur museum will be held on Sept. 28 at Tianyu, and officials from Guinness World Records headquarters would attend, Yin said.