Research and Collections
Most of our current research stems from the work of the Perot Museum’s curator emeritus Dr. Anthony Fiorillo. Fiorillo works extensively on Late Cretaceous vertebrate faunas across the globe, with a particular interest in polar Late Cretaceous communities and dinosaur paleoecology. For Fiorillo, the appeal of fieldwork in Alaska is the result of the combination of intellectual pursuit and the rigors of working in the Arctic environment.
The Museum also operates North Texas’ largest and most active fossil preparation laboratory, overseen by Dr. Ron Tykoski, vice president of science. Tykoski has overseen the preparation of the Pachyrhinosaurus perotorum skull from Alaska. He also led the description and naming of North America’s oldest fossil bird, Flexomornis howei, from Grapevine, Texas, and prepared the neck vertebrae of the Museum’s giant Alamosaurus sanjuanensis from Big Bend National Park.
Submit Your Discovery
North Texas has a rich geological and paleontological history. Many of the specimens in the Museum’s collections were discovered by everyday folks who found something odd and wanted to have it identified. Our research staff can usually identify a specimen based on a few clear photographs.
