ALISO VIEJO : Reptiles of Past to Open at Museum

The ugly creature stood on a small platform as his long, rubbery tail was attached.

“He has only one toenail. He must have been a guitar player,” one spectator joked.

And then, with a gentle tug and pull by his handlers, the Tyrannosaurus rex emerged from the moving van to begin his four-month visit in Orange County.

The 12-foot-long dinosaur, made of latex, silicone and foam rubber, is part of a 13-piece robotic collection that will be the Museum of Natural History and Sciences’ opening exhibit beginning Dec. 15 in Aliso Viejo.

And in an attempt to bridge the past and the future, another major exhibit on space exploration will be combined with the showing of the extinct reptile models for the museum’s premiere.

“Opening a first museum, you want big splashes, and dinosaurs are pretty neat,” museum assistant director Susan Moore-Laux said.

Manufactured by the Japanese firm Kokoro, the dinosaurs range in length from four feet to 40 feet--between one-fourth and one-half the actual size of the creatures--and weigh up to 1,000 pounds each.

“They pick up their feet, they move their heads and they roar,” Moore-Laux said.

The dinosaurs are powered by air that goes through the central cavities of the models, said Frank Sutton, Kokoro service technician and “dinosaur doctor”

The models represent the three different time periods of their existence millions of years ago, and the 4,800-square-foot dinosaur exhibit will be about one-third larger than the usual exhibits of the prehistoric reptiles.

Although some of the pieces are new, others came from New York and Hawaii to complete the exhibit.

“It’s a pretty easy move,” Sutton said as he supervised the transfer of the reptiles from the van to an unfinished room in the new museum. “We just make sure they are secure in the truck so they can’t move around and so they don’t run into each other and bounce against the wall and self-destruct.”