Naming Contest Opens for Abu Dhabi Museum's T. rex, Whale

Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi has opened a public competition to name two of its most significant specimens, a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton and a 25-metre blue whale, both already on display but still unnamed. The initiative, called Name Two Giants. Your Chance To Make History., runs from October 5 to October 25, 2026, and is free to enter through the museum’s website, nhmad.ae, with no limit on how many suggestions each person can submit.

The two specimens at the centre of the exercise are among the museum’s most important holdings. The first is a male T. rex that stands alongside Stan, the institution’s better-known Tyrannosaurus. According to the museum, it ranks among the five most complete T. rex skeletons ever found. The second is a female blue whale, a member of the largest animal species known to have lived. It washed ashore on Canada’s east coast in 2021 and now hangs in the museum’s galleries. Unlike the blue whales displayed in museums in London and New York, which are suspended high above visitors, the Abu Dhabi whale is mounted about three metres off the ground, as National Geographic reported when the museum opened.

The winning names will be displayed permanently alongside the specimens, and the museum has framed the naming process as part of its scientific mission rather than a promotional exercise. Professor Peter C. Kjærgaard, Director of Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi, said naming is central to scientific work.

“Science begins with a name. It is how a discovery becomes something we can study, share and protect. We are proud to give our community the chance to do that for two of the most important specimens in our collection, because this museum was created so that people can take part in science,” he said.

“The names chosen will be used by our researchers, by teachers and by every visitor who stands beneath these two giants for generations to come, and they will have been given by the people this museum was built for.”

Once entries close on October 25, a jury of experts from the museum and the Department of Culture and Tourism Abu Dhabi will review the submissions. The winning names will be announced later this year, and each winner will receive a commemorative prize from the museum.

The competition sits within a broader naming tradition at the institution. Several fossils found in Abu Dhabi already carry names linked to the emirate, and many are on display in the galleries. Abudhabia baynunensis is an extinct gerbil that lived around seven to eight million years ago, named after Abu Dhabi and the Baynunah Formation, the rock layer where it was found. Hipparion abudhabiense was a three-toed horse that once roamed the region’s ancient grasslands. Stegotetrabelodon emiratus, a four-tusked elephant, carries a name that honours the Emirates.

Some specimen names honour the people who found them instead. Stan, the museum’s other T. rex, is named after Stan Sacrison, the amateur palaeontologist who discovered the first of its bones in South Dakota in 1987. That skeleton is around 67 million years old.

The museum itself is a recent addition to the Saadiyat Cultural District. It opened on November 22, 2025, and covers 35,000 square metres, making it the largest museum of its kind in the region. Designed by Dutch architecture firm Mecanoo, it traces 13.8 billion years of natural history, from the Big Bang to the present day, with a focus on the Arabian Peninsula. Other highlights include the Murchison Meteorite, which fell in Australia in 1969 and contains material older than the solar system. With the naming competition now underway, the museum is extending that public access from its galleries to the scientific record itself.