The Canadian museum housing the nation's largest collection of fossils

Art · Published 30 September 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: Hidden within the Alberta badlands, the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology serves as both a world-class research facility and a massive repository of prehistoric life. It holds over 160,000 cataloged specimens, including hundreds of rare holotypes that provide a window into the Cretaceous era.

Located in Drumheller at Midland Provincial Park, the museum was established following a 1981 announcement by the Alberta provincial government. The project was part of a broader initiative by Premier Peter Lougheed to create a network of museums across rural Alberta. Originally intended to be the Palaeontological Museum and Research Institute, the name was changed by its first director, David Baird, to honor Joseph Burr Tyrrell. Tyrrell was a geologist for the Geological Survey of Canada who accidentally discovered the first reported dinosaur fossil in the Red Deer River valley in 1884.

The facility is a massive 12,500-square-metre structure designed to function as both a public museum and a high-level laboratory. The museum's collection is significant, containing more than 350 holotypes and roughly 800 fossils on display. Its scientific reach is global; in 1985, it joined the China-Canada Dinosaur Project, which represented a major step in scientific cooperation between Chinese and Western palaeontologists following the Chinese Communist Revolution. Today, the museum's collection is so unique that it holds five Guinness World Records, including the best-preserved Borealopelta and the longest-necked Albertonectes fossil.

The museum's architecture has evolved through two major 21st-century expansions. The first, the ATCO Tyrrell Learning Centre, was completed in 2003 to provide classrooms and distance learning technology. The second expansion, a learning lounge completed in 2019 by Kasian Architecture, was funded by both provincial and federal sources. This $9.3 million project—with $5.7 million from the province and $3.5 million from the federal government—was created to provide more interactive, hands-on experiences for visitors.

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