T-rrific: rare dinosaur fossils crown major Smithsonian makeover

'The Nation's T rex' will stand upright for the first time in 66m years alongside 720 specimens as part of a five-year overhaul

"He's decapitating a Triceratops," Siobhan Starrs observes casually. "You want drama with the T rex. We'll give it to you."

The gory scene, worthy of Jurassic Park, is frozen in time in the 31,000sq-ft fossil hall at the popular Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington DC, which reopens to the public on 8 June after a massive overhaul spanning five years and costing $125m.