Case study - Natural History Museum

Maastrichtian Miasma or T-Rex Breath. "The bigger you are, the stinkier you are, the nastier you are, the less other animals will mess with you".

Tyrannosaurus Rex

The Tyrannosaurus Rex exhibition was unveiled at London's Natural History Museum on 17th February 2001. The most advanced robotic dinosaur was presented to the world. However, not content with just showing another replica dinosaur, the museum wanted to capture the authentic smell of the fearsome beast. It wanted the whiff of a killer drenched in the blood of it's prey, reeking of rotten meat and scarred with infected wounds.

Dale Air worked alongside the Natural History Museum to create the Maastrichtian Miasma aroma. We took advice from Dr.Angela O'Connell, the museum's Head of Vertebrate Palaeontology. We first contemplated the pungent smell of the T-Rex's breath. If you can imagine this huge beast, fifteen feet tall with the remains of rotting flesh between it's teeth, every time it's mouth opened a foul acrid smell would have been emitted. Although we created a true to life aroma, the smell was so authentic that it was considered too sickly for the public to withstand.

We were asked, instead, to create the smell of the environment that the creature occupied. With advice we created a boggy, swampy type smell with just a slight touch of the creature's breath. This aroma was selected for the exhibition.

For further information, please visit: www.nhm.ac.uk

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