A section of a museum exhibition, with large cut-outs of trees and plants, and specimens in display cases.

Field MuseumMuseum Campus, Near South Side

After the Age of Dinosaurs

Now showing29 August 2025 – 3 January 2027Ticketed, see website

What happened once the dinosaurs were gone: plants and animals reshaped Earth into a lush tropical world of new giants and tiny survivors, told through fossils, touchable casts and immersive media.

Book tickets Exhibition website

More in Chicago

On now All of November 2026

The first rooms are dark and quiet. The show opens on the aftermath of the asteroid that hit 66 million years ago, with animations, thunderous sound effects and a fossil fish thought to have died on the very day of the strike.

From there it builds back up, through rainforest and flowering plants, to an ecosystem like today's Amazon. About 100 specimens cover the first 15 million years after the dinosaurs, many never shown before, from Wyoming's Green River Formation and from Mazon Creek, just south of Chicago. You walk past six-foot penguins and a Titanoboa shown to scale at 45 feet, longer than a CTA bus. Around 60 pop-art illustrations by Chicago poster artist Jay Ryan fill in what the bones can't.

It's on the first floor and needs an add-on ticket on top of general admission (from $30, or $21 for Chicago residents). Up to four children aged 3 to 11 get in free with each paying adult. It closes on 3 January 2027.

Look for

Titanoboa at full length
Look for the largest snake that ever lived, laid out to scale at 45 feet, big enough to take down a crocodile.
The fish from impact day
In the opening rooms, a fossil fish thought to have died on the day the asteroid struck sits amid the sound and animation of the impact.
The Wyoming mousebird
A small fossil bird found in Wyoming is among the specimens the Field Museum is showing for the first time.
Fossils you can touch
Casts of fossil snakes, crocodiles, bats, frogs and plants are there to handle and compare with the animals alive today.
The rainforest that grew back
Large fossil leaves of the elephant plant and fossilized branches from the chocolate family show the lush forests that followed the impact.

Good for

Nerding Out
Small Kids

Skip if

You want dinosaurs: this show starts the day after they disappeared.

With kids

Up to four children aged 3 to 11 get in free with each paying adult. Kids can touch fossil casts, hear the impact and measure themselves against extinct giants.