Monte San Giorgo in southern Ticino is not only known to experts and interested laypeople, but also to a wider public as the "mountain of dinosaurs". For more than 100 years, the flanks of this popular excursion destination have been eagerly searched for fossils between 235 and 245 million years old. This is where the coast of the forerunner of today's Mediterranean Sea once stretched. This former basin can best be compared with today's Caribbean.
Paleontological research in southern Ticino first flourished in the 1920s and 1930s, when Bernhard Peyer from the University of Zurich carried out extensive excavations. The finds of the skeletons of small dinosaurs, some of which were completely preserved, caused quite a stir. The various species of marine dinosaurs differ greatly from one another in terms of their movements and diet.
A cast of one of the most beautiful specimens can be admired in the Glacier Garden. This cast of Ceresiosaurus was added to the exhibition in 1961 and is located on the first floor of the Schweizerhaus. It was a gift to the Glacier Garden Foundation for its many years of support for the excavations of the Palaeontological Institute of the ETH and the University of Zurich.
