Thursday 17 May, was  International Museum Day; to mark the event the Central Museum of Mongolian Dinosaurs opened a new showroom entitled the ‘Origin of the World’.

The Central Museum of Mongolian Dinosaurs was established in order to protect, register and verify fossils, and help preserve the country’s rich paleaontological heritage for future generations. Mongolia’s Gobi Desert contains some of the richest remains from the last great age of the dinosaurs – the Late Cretaceous which ended 66 million years ago.

The main exhibit in the museum is Tyrannosaurus Bataar which was illegally smuggled out of country to the United States and sold in Texas at an auction for over USD 1m in 2012. The government of Mongolia brought a claim through the courts and recovered the exhibit.

Currently, the museum has three showrooms and over 40 exhibits.