Showcasing the most important fossil finds in Patagonia, this natural-history museum offers outstanding life-size dinosaur exhibits and more than 1700 fossil remains of plant and marine life. Nature sounds and a video complement the informative plaques, and tours are available in a number of languages. The collection's most exciting addition is the Patagotitan, possibly the largest animal to ever walk the earth, discovered in 2013.
Other local dinosaurs here include the tehuelchesaurus, patagosaurus and titanosaurus. With an international team, museum researchers helped discover a new and unusual species called Brachytrachelopan mesai, a short-necked sauropod. Egidio Feruglio, after whom the museum is named, was an Italian paleontologist who came to Argentina in 1925 as a petroleum geologist for YPF.
Kids aged eight to 12 can check out the ‘Explorers in Pyjamas’ program, which invites kids to sleep over and explore the museum by flashlight. The museum also sponsors interesting group tours to Geoparque Paleontológico Bryn Gwyn, in the badlands along the Río Chubut (25km from Trelew, or 8km south of Gaiman via RP 5). The three-hour guided visits are a walk through time, visiting exposed fossils dating as far back as the Tertiary period, some 40 million years ago.
