Wankel T.Rex Arrival At Smithsonian National Museum Delayed Due to Federal Shutdown

Several services across the U.S. have been curtailed due to the government being in a shutdown mode. The ripple effect of this closure has even frozen one of the most important acquisitions of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, a 68- million- year- old T-Rex skeleton.

The much anticipated arrival of a Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton scheduled for Oct. 11 at the National Museum of Natural History is on-hold until spring due to the federal shutdown, reports the Smithsonian Magazine.

The rare but, intact fossil of the T.Rex skeleton was to be transferred from Bozeman, Mont., where it is currently preserved, to the Washington D.C. museum for a future exhibition. But, since it has become a victim of the government furlough, the arrival is delayed for a few months.

The 68-million-year- old fossil of the T.Rex is one of the most significant acquisitions the museum has ever made. The fossil will be on a 50-year loan to the Washington museum under an agreement with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The skeleton will be displayed at the new dinosaur hall in the museum that will be inaugurated in 2019, New York Times Reports.

The send-off of the T.Rex from the Bozeman was cancelled along with the Smithsonian program for hundreds of school children who were going to be represented as "junior palaeontologists" in honour of the dinosaur's entry to the capital.

Kirk Johnson, the director of the Museum of Natural History, said, "We'd prefer not to move him out of Bozeman in the snow. It's a complete Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton, and there aren't that many of those around. You don't want to ding him up."

The 38-foot long and 7-ton skeleton of this rare T.Rex called Wankel T.Rex is named after the local rancher Kathy Wankel who discovered it in 1988 on an island in Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge, Montana. Since then, it has been kept on display at the Museum of the Rockies, Bozeman, Mont.