Giant Attraction: Museum in Washington expecting large crowds to see 12-meter-long T-Rex

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02:23

A special, prehistoric visitor will be part of a new exhibit at a Smithsonian museum in Washington. But unlike the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, this giant reptile will make visitors smile. Our correspondent Jim Spellman reports.

Washington DC's newest visitor has arrived. A Tyrannosaurus rex fossil that will soon be on display in a new exhibit at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History.

MATTHEW CARRANO, CURATOR DINOSAURIA AT THE SMITHSONIAN MUSEUM OF NATIONAL HISTORY "When the hall opens this T-Rex is going to be standing on its feet. It's going to have its mouth around the head of a Triceratops, and it's going to be in the process of decapitating that Triceratops, so it's going to be a pretty lively view for our visitors."

This box of bones arrived, via Fed-Ex, from a lab in Canada where the fossil was being prepared for exhibition. When the construction is complete, the T-Rex, at four-and-a-half meters high and 12 meters long, will be the centerpiece of a new exhibit called Deep Time.

MATTHEW CARRANO, CURATOR DINOSAURIA AT THE SMITHSONIAN MUSEUM OF NATIONAL HISTORY "Dinosaurs are a perfect combination. They are incredibly fantastic animals, you can use your imaginations to think what do they sound like What do they smell like But you know in the back of your head they are really real, so it's not just fantasy."

JIM SPELLMAN WASHINGTON DC, US "The exhibit will open next summer. When it does, the Smithsonian expects about six million visitors, from all over the world, to walk through this room each year."

Including thousands of visitors from China which has seen increasing interest in dinosaurs as more fossils have been uncovered there. These dinosaur footprints were discovered recently in Shandong Province.

KIRK JOHNSON, DIRECTOR SMITHSONIAN MUSEUM OF NATIONAL HISTORY "China has phenomenal dinosaurs. Many of the breakthroughs in dinosaur science have happened in China since the mid-90s."

Dinosaurs have always fascinated us, popping up on TV and in the movies. And studying dinosaurs helps scientist learn about our earth today.

MATTHEW CARRANO, CURATOR DINOSAURIA AT THE SMITHSONIAN MUSEUM OF NATIONAL HISTORY E "They enable the museum to excite and inspire people, then to tell stories that have real scientific importance behind them."

But many of the visitors will come to see the dinosaurs for one simple reason:

"They are just really cool."

Jim Spellman, CGTN