• Coelophysis

    An extensive look at the official state fossil of New Mexico

Learning about New Mexico’s state fossil through an interactive site

Triassic Park

Fossils of the dinosaur coelophysis have only been found in one state, New Mexico, leading to the dinosaur being declared the state fossil. The coelophysis exhibit at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science provides museum visitors with a wealth of information about the dinosaur, as well as a peek at the actual fossils. The Coelophysis Website is on display at the museum as part of the Dawn of Dinosuars: Triassic New Mexico exhibition. This comprehensive site and exhibit allows visitors to learn more about how Coelophysis lived and the Triassic environment it inhabited.

Images, illustrations, and popular articles are available as are answers to commonly asked questions. Visitors can email themselves (or others) any of the information they find through the exhibit. A version of the museum exhibit is also available on the Web. The design of the Website for the museum floor was maximized for a tall vertically aligned screen. This minimizes scrolling in the museum environment. The exhibit and website tie into a custom database and content management system, developed using the Ruby on Rails framework, which allows the content to be easily changed by museum staff. Ideum worked closely with the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science to develop the interactive exhibit and site. It is part of the Dawn of the Dinosaurs: Triassic New Mexico exhibition, which is on permanent display at the museum.

Back To Projects