Four large Matson containers of dinosaurs have migrated across the ocean to the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum for eight months of adventures with kamaʻāina and tourists. The special exhibit, “Expedition Dinosaur: Into the Deep,” runs May 24 through Jan. 25, 2026.
Brandon Bunag, the vice president of public programs for the museum, remembers seeing a similar exhibit when he was a kid, he told Aloha State Daily.
“For the museum, part of our job is really to showcase what we have in our own collections,” Bunag said. “Second to that, we also find it our responsibility to see what's out there — and if we have the opportunity — to bring [it] to Hawaiʻi. For example, dinosaurs is a long treasured exhibition. It's not the exact same exhibition as it was the last time it was here, but bringing an exhibit like [this] to Hawaiʻi is important for us so that our families feel that they don't have to travel very far to see an exhibit like dinosaurs.”
The 7,000-square-foot exhibit, located in the Castle Memorial Building, focuses on the “parallels between prehistoric marine ecosystems and the diverse aquatic habitats surrounding our islands today,” according to the museum’s website.
Created by Stage 9 Exhibits, it showcases oceanic and aquatic reptiles from the Jurassic period, as well as keiki favorites such as the T-Rex and Stegosaurus. The museum has been bringing dinosaurs to Hawaiʻi every four years or so, he added. In this exhibit, there are animatronic dinosaurs.
“They move,” he said. “In what we think is the same way that they might have moved when they were walking the earth.”
Keiki activities include a chance to sift for fossils, he added.
Bunag credits the dinosaur exhibit he saw at the same museum as a child with making him ask questions.
“As a kid, I remember it piqued my curiosity,” Bunag said. “We understand extinction and all of that: How do we know these things existed? And, more importantly, how do we put them back together?”
Getting kids to ask questions and be curious is exactly what a museum is meant to do, he said.
“That's our job as a museum is to really just pique our visitors’ interest in something, whether it be dinosaurs or feather making that our Hawaiian Hall displays,” he said.
There are also parallels between dinosaurs and animals native to Hawaiʻi, he added.
“Here in Hawaiʻi, we have our own story of evolution to extinction,” he said. “We have our Hawaiian honeycreepers, the majority of which are extinct, but we have an entire display in our Science Adventure Center that showcases what these honeycreepers look like and their evolution process right here, in our own backyard.”
Entry to the special dinosaur exhibit is included in regular admission, which is $38.95 for adults, $35.95 for seniors, and $30.95 for youth. For members of the museum, the special exhibit admission fee is $3 per person. Details.
Katie Helland can be reached at katie@alohastatedaily.com.
