Dinosaurs to Roam Earth Again

With this pane of 16 stamps, the U.S. Postal Service brings to life Tyrannosaurus rex — some 66 million years after its demise.

The First-Day-Of-Issue dedication ceremony is scheduled Thursday, August 29, at 11 a.m. EST at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington DC.

Tyrannosaurus rex dominated the tail end of the dinosaur age. A recent surge in discoveries has revolutionized our understanding of the fierce carnivore. Four dynamic designs on a pane of 16 stamps depict the awe-inspiring dinosaur in growth stages from infancy to adulthood.

One design illustrates a face-to-face encounter with a T. rex approaching through a forest clearing; another shows the same young adult T. rex with a young Triceratops — both dinosaurs shown in fossil form.

The third and fourth stamps depict a newly hatched T. rex covered with downy feathers and a bare-skinned juvenile T. rex chasing a primitive mammal.

“The Nation’s T. rex,” the young adult depicted on two of the stamps, was discovered on federal land in Montana and is one of the most studied and important specimens ever found. Its remains are now exhibited at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC. Art director Greg Breeding designed the stamps with original artwork by scientist and paleoartist Julius T. Csotonyi.