Ben the Plateosaurus

Ben the Plateosaurus is a genuine skeleton from Frick, in Switzerland. He was named after Ben Pabst, the palaeontologist who discovered him. The Plateoteam (made up of palaeontologists and technicians from the Museum of Natural Sciences) worked for 18 months to dig out his bones and reconstruct his skeleton. Since December 2017 he is on permanent display in the Dinosaur Gallery.

Plateosaurus lived around 210 million years ago. Measuring 6.4m long, they were some of the biggest dinosaurs from the Triassic period (their predecessors were less than 1.5m long). Most importantly, they were also some of the first “long necked” dinosaurs. They belonged to the prosauropod family, the precursors of sauropods like Diplodocus. They had long tails and necks that were already quite lengthy compared to other dinosaurs.

Their enormous size enabled them to eat a large variety of vegetation (but they probably ate just about everything that came their way, including insects and small animals). They were bipeds. They lived in groups and could defend themselves with powerful claws on their back feet.