01/27/2026
Sometimes veterinarians have unique jobs too!
If you walked into a veterinary hospital CT suite last summer, you might have expected to see a horse or a dog patient. Instead, you would have seen something that had not taken a breath in about 150 million years.
A team from The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis arrived at Purdue University Veterinary Hospital carrying pieces of an Allosaurus fossil, still wrapped in dense, iron-rich sandstone. This was not a replica. It was the real thing, discovered in 2020 at the museum’s dig site in Wyoming, in a rare “articulated” state with bones still aligned the way they were in life.
That kind of preservation is thrilling, but it also creates a dilemma. If there is fossilized skin or delicate surface detail still present, you cannot simply chip away all the surrounding rock. You have to see what is inside before you touch it.
So the museum’s paleontology team partnered with Purdue Veterinary Medicine’s Diagnostic Imaging team for high-powered CT scans in the David and Bonnie Brunner Equine Hospital. Planning came first. Test scans were run on a smaller rock sample to find the best CT setup for imaging bone through solid matrix. Then, on scanning days, an unforgettable scene unfolded as paleontology staff and veterinary imaging professionals carefully moved the heavy, fragile fossil into position.
The results were worth the effort. The scans provided a clearer map of what was hidden in the rock, including fine anatomical details and even replacement teeth still inside the jaw. Those images are now guiding the museum’s preparation work so more of the fossil can be preserved and revealed safely, layer by layer.
This is what One Health collaboration can look like in real life: imaging expertise built for animal patients helping unlock a window into natural history. And it is only the beginning. The museum anticipates the future Allosaurus exhibit will take several more years to complete, but visitors can already watch preparation happening in the Paleo Lab at The Children's Museum of Indianapolis.
Somewhere between a CT suite and a paleontology lab, a Jurassic predator is coming back into view.
You can view more photos at https://purdue.vet/jurassic-album
Purdue University Purdue University College of Health and Human Sciences Indiana State Board of Animal Health IVMA: Indiana Veterinary Medical Association Purdue Science
