Museum to receive record-setting dinosaur skeleton

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — The Glazer Children’s Museum in Tampa is chomping at the bit to show off the real dinosaur skeleton it is getting — not one of those plaster or robotic ones. It’s nicknamed “Big John” after the South Dakota rancher whose land was the final resting place for the ancient bones, which set a Guinness record for the largest triceratops skeleton ever uncovered.

It measures 26 feet long, 10 feet high and is as big as an RV. It sold at auction in 2021 for $7.7 million, another record for the highest price ever paid for a dino skeleton that isn’t a T. rex. The buyer had been unnamed, but the museum has revealed that the donation is coming from the Tampa-based Pagidipati family.

“Ever since I was a young boy, I have been fascinated by dinosaurs roaming the Earth,” said Siddhartha Pagidipati, an entrepreneur who has founded numerous global brands, including Talent.me, Inventcorp and Freedom Health, which was ranked No. 7 in Inc. magazine’s list of the 500 fastest-growing companies of 2009. “When we found out Big John was discovered, and that he was the biggest triceratops ever found, we were so excited to bring him here to Tampa Bay. Now everyone will have the chance to see him in person and feel an experience of what his world was like millions of years ago.”

The dinosaur is being lent to the museum for three years, and possibly longer. When the epic exhibit opens this Memorial Day weekend, Big John will become Tampa Bay’s first-ever large fossilized dinosaur skeleton on long-term display. The exhibit also marks Big John’s North American debut and his first time on display in a museum.

Sections of Big John will be arriving in the coming weeks, and the museum will convert its large event space on the third floor into a new dino exhibit.

At a news conference...