“An Incredible Feeling” – Dino Hunter on Excavation Fever, Stegosaurs and the T-Rex

The first T-Rex to touch Swiss soil is currently in Zurich – dead or alive. His name: Trinity. But the dinosaur can only be admired in the Tonhalle until April 16, after which it will go under the hammer. What will happen to the prehistoric lizard after that is uncertain and depends on its new owner.

Yolanda Schicker-Siber of the Aathal Dinosaur Museum is involved in the presentation of Trinity in Zurich as an advisor. watson talked to her about dig fever, stegosaurs, spinosaurs, and the T-Rex.

watson: It’s tempting to start the interview with the question, What’s your favorite dinosaur?
Yolanda Schicker-Siber: The Stegosaurus!

And have you ever been allowed to dig up a stegosaurus?
Not just once. And we’re currently working on a site in the US state of Wyoming with a stegosaurus. That’s an exciting story.

Tell.
A few years ago, after only two days on this dig, I found a small caudal vertebra. We then continued the search – and suddenly the whole backbone was in front of us. It’s such an incredible feeling when you have something whole in front of you and not just individual bones. That’s the best thing ever. And: this stegosaurus has 70 to 80 percent original bone mass. That is a lot! For example, Trinity is made from 50 percent original bone.

How does anyone even devote their life to dinosaurs?
I grew up with dinosaurs, my father owns the Aathal Dinosaur Museum. I have been involved in excavations since childhood. So dinosaurs were nothing special to me. When choosing a career, it was clear: I certainly don’t want to do anything with those old bones. That’s why I started training as a seamstress. A few years later, after returning from a long journey, I temporarily assisted the taxidermists at the Dinosaur Museum. Then it grabbed me.

And “temporarily” turned into a passion.
There is no taxidermist training in Switzerland. I did take a few courses at university, but I still had to teach myself how to prepare. I then learned the trade as an intern in American museums.

And today you return to the United States to dig for stegosaurs.
We are digging to get new pieces for the museum, and the legal situation in the United States is convenient for us. Because you can dig on private land in the US and then legally export the bones to Switzerland if you have an agreement with the land owner.

How do you know where to dig?
The landowners know their land very well and know where the dinosaurs could be. We then first look at the surface situation – and thanks to our many years of experience we can quickly assess whether it is really worth digging.

When is it worth it?
We first look for fragments, little hums sniffing the ground. If the spot looks promising, we start digging in small areas. Then when a second or even third bot appears, things get interesting. But we don’t know at this point what will come out of it.

So bring out the big guns.
Precisely. Then we get the excavator. Sometimes you’re unlucky and the dinosaur bones don’t just lie on the land you have permission to dig. That can be frustrating. Where we are allowed to dig, we document the arrangement of the bones and plaster them together with the surrounding rock before transporting them to Switzerland. Here we free the bones from their plaster layer, prepare them and make them ready for exhibition.

Did you put the bones in plaster?
We cannot just pull the objects out of the ground, otherwise they will crumble. So we have to be very careful when salvaging. If we have a series, we excavate block by block and these blocks are plastered. Only in Switzerland do we remove the bones from the rock during preparation. Since the bones are already broken in the ground, we continuously stabilize them with glue during this time, otherwise they would fall apart as soon as they became detached from the rock shell.

That sounds like a mammoth task for Sisyphus.
We dug up the bones quickly. But preparing and preparing for the exhibition takes years. For example, we have to supplement the missing bones with artificial material.

So when you fill in missing bones, you need to know exactly how many bones dinosaurs consisted of and how they were arranged. For example, what about the stegosaurus you’re editing right now?
We’re lucky to be stegosaurus experts now. This specimen is already the fifth Stegosaurus that we excavate. If we look at all our five specimens, we can deduce the whole skeleton. What we still don’t know is how the plates on the animals’ backs were arranged, as they are not connected to the rest of the skeleton. Were they parallel to each other or offset? In line? Could the animal even move them?

This is exciting! Do you let researchers examine their skeletons for these questions?
The dinosaur museum works closely with science. We already have scientists at the excavation – we are always an international team. As soon as the dinosaurs are in the museum, the researchers come to us. Unfortunately, no research is being done on our Stegosaurus skeletons at this time. But there would be a lot to explore, such as how the backplates were arranged. You could also look closely at the attachment points of the blood vessels. It’s been theorized that the animals could be pumping blood into the plates to change color or regulate blood flow. But all this still needs to be explored. Sometimes evaluating new data turns everything you thought you knew about a species upside down.

Do you have an example?
The Spinosaurus is a vivid example. For a long time it was believed that the animal with the striking vertebral processes on its back was a terrestrial animal. Until a recently published study examined bone density and it was remarkably high. This supported the proposition that Spinosaurus primarily lived and hunted in the water. There are still so many unanswered questions! And every find can raise new questions.

Which brings me to Trinity. The T-Rex, which can currently be admired in Zurich, previously belonged to a private individual and is therefore scientifically completely untouched. If the skeleton disappears back into a private collection at the auction in April and becomes inaccessible for research for decades, an 11-meter long dataset will be lost, which could give rise to countless research questions. How do you rate that?
The dinosaur museum is involved in the development of Trinity in an advisory capacity, so I am close to the subject. In my opinion, the outside pressure is very high right now that the skeleton should be made accessible to the public and research. Trinity is now a celebrity. I can’t imagine the skeleton just disappearing again. It is therefore possible that the new buyer does not want to identify himself – but still lends the skeleton to a museum.

The dinosaur museum also traded bones. Doesn’t that contradict your scientific claims?
As I said, collaboration with researchers and scientific institutions is very important to us. Among other things, my father, Hans Jakob Siber, donated ten of our original dinosaurs to the University of Zurich for the new natural history museum that is coming up. All these ten dinosaurs are invaluable as a collection for science. With the donation we want to ensure that the collection stays together and is exhibited in a dignified place.
But back to the question: we are a private museum and have to fund ourselves and our excavations. Without these sales we would not be where we are today.

Can you perform this?
Especially in the early years of our museum, we sold objects to finance an excavation. We were then able to present the skeletons found to the public. It was a cycle.

And that is no longer the case today?
Today there is the opportunity to present our original skeletons at exhibitions around the world. Our goal is to catch up with these kinds of shows soon enough. I would like to point out here, however, that most of the great finds were made by private collectors and that the museums either bought these finds or exhibited them on loan. With pieces as special as Trinity that institutions can’t necessarily afford, it’s also becoming more common for investors to bid on the skeletons for new museums – especially many in Asia. The trade in dinosaur skeletons thus becomes an opportunity for museums and science.

What do you like most about your job?
It’s the best job in the world! It is so versatile: from excavation to display. There are times when I can hardly believe how lucky I am to have a job that I enjoy so much. Sure, sometimes it’s brutally exhausting, but that inspires you even more when you’ve made it. I have a great team by my side and my family supports me wherever they can.

What is the future of dinosaurs in museums?
Our visitors are getting younger and younger. Toddlers come to us. Sometimes these children apply to me for excavations years later. The dinosaur fever is not going away.