New Dinosaur Adventure exhibit opens at White Post Farms in Melville
Carson Warkenthien — aka Professor Terry Dactyl — holds a baby T-rex dinosaur named Daisy and greets visitors to the new animatronic Dinosaur Adventure exhibit at White Post Farms in Melville.
More than a half-dozen roaring, moving dinosaurs await inside the exhibit, including a larger Tyrannosaurus rex, a pteranodon, and a stegosaurus. In addition, there’s a woolly mammoth, a saber-toothed tiger, a volcano, an enormous butterfly and more.
Neya Singh, 4, meets baby dinosaur Daisy. Credit: Morgan Campbell
The exhibit, included with farm admission, unfolds sort of like a haunted house but filled with dinosaurs instead of ghosts. Visitors begin in a darkened, junglelike room with one T-rex and a flying pteranodon. They emerge outdoors into the light to see a triceratops and raptor. Then the main room is again dark, with imposing dinosaurs, colored flashing lights and a simulated lightning storm.
Families can spot a T-rex and a pterodactyl at the Dinosaur Adventure exhibit at White Post Farm. Credit: Morgan Campbell
"I learned a lot of new things," says Brendan O’Keeffe, 8, of Long Beach, after going through the exhibit. "I learned the stegosaurus lived 2 million years ago."
Madeline Pulla, 9, of the Bronx, was at the exhibit recently with her brother, Steven, 10, and other family members. "I really liked the volcano, because it had a lot of color," Madeline says. Says older sister Estafania, 22, in Spanish of the dinosaurs, "They look real. They’re perfectly done. They are very similar to the movies."
Visit with a T-rex at the new exhibit. Credit: Newsday/Beth Whitehouse
At the end of the exhibit, there’s a playground area where children can climb and slide down dinosaurs. There are also dinosaur eggs children can be photographed inside and a dinosaur safari jeep.
"Kids want to be stimulated. They want to see action. They want things to be ‘Whoa, look!’" says White Post manager Ron Brigati of why White Post Farms added the new exhibit to its live animal farm. "Dinosaurs are something that never gets old. The excitement, the mystery."
Isidro Maldonado and his son, Jared Maldonado, 3, greet a triceratops. Credit: Morgan Campbell
White Post Farms is at 250 Old Country Rd., Melville. Admission is $29.95 plus tax in person using cash at the farm, $33.95 plus tax online. 631-351-9373, whitepostfarms.com.
Beth Whitehouse writes about families, parenting and great things to do with the kids on Long Island. She’s been a Newsday editor and shared a 1997 Newsday staff Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the crash of TWA Flight 800.
