The posh locality of Jubilee Hills in the city is all set to get a park with representations of species dating back to millions of years. As part of its chain of theme parks across the city, the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) is completing work on a ‘Jurassic Park’ close to the Lotus Pond and the facility will be thrown open to the public in a couple of months.

The innovative aspect of the park is life size models of creatures that roamed the earth some 150 million years ago and went extinct. The urban biodiversity wing of the GHMC is setting up nearly 21 models of dinosaurs of varying sizes and designs, which help recreate the aura of a lost era.

“But for three models, the rest have been received and installed,” said the GHMC Biodiversity Director, Y. Ramesh. Plans are also afoot to have a giant-sized dinosaur model that will be spread across 60 feet and tower to a height of 20 feet, he said.

The ‘Jurassic Park’, which so far cost around Rs.19 lakh, apart from models of the fauna that flourished millions of years back, will also put together a rich collection of flora from the period. According to officials, these are the plant species that are usually referred to as living fossils having survived the ages and threats of extinction.

The plant species will be selected based on Palaeobotany studies and will include cycads, tree ferns and certain palms and gymnosperms. “We already have some varieties of cycads and more varieties will be acquired soon,” Mr. Ramesh said.

The officials plan to complete the works at the earliest after equipping the rest of the dinosaur models and adding the flora. The city is scheduled to host the Metropolis World Congress and around 2,000 delegates from across the globe are expected to visit the city for the international meet. “We plan to have the ‘Jurassic Park’ ready before the Metropolis meet gets going,” an official added.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Hyderabad / by T. Lalith Singh / Hyderabad – July 06th, 2014