HARRISBURG, Pa. (WHTM) – Dinosaurs are coming to Harrisburg this weekend as Jurassic Quest will be at the Farm Show.

“Jurassic Quest is the largest interactive dinosaur exhibit. It’s traveling the country,” explains Carolyn Barker. She’s a Dino Trainer for Jurassic Quest, a job that involves interacting with people who visit the exhibit, often while carrying a baby triceratops named Trixie. “And we are in Harrisburg this weekend only, bringing 165 million years worth of dinosaurs to families of the area and activities for kids of all ages.”

“We have ten stops on our quest, our scavenger hunt, to make sure that you see everything. You can see a T-Rex, a Spinosaurus, and an oviraptor with its nest of eggs. There are lots of opportunities to learn about raptors and fossils.”

Even if you’re dealing with dinosaurs, you do have to keep up with the times. Case in point-feathered dinosaurs. The discovery of dinosaur fossils with feathers starting in the 1990s revolutionized our understanding of dinosaurs, moving us from the slow, stupid, ponderous “terrible lizards” of yore to sleek, agile, smart, bird-like creatures.

“Some of our dinosaurs look furry, but they actually have short fluffy feathers, that would help them stay warm,” says Carolyn. “But we think some of the feathers would have been brightly colored, to help them attract a mate.”

“It’s changing people’s concept of dinosaurs, to see more connections with today’s modern birds. And we’re thinking some of their behaviors we can assume, based on how birds behave today.”

The feathered friends of Jurassic Quest range from mellow to… muppet. One dino is bedecked with wild flyaway orange and blue feathers that look like something straight out of Jim Henson’s Creature Shop. It’s meant more for the kids – but good luck trying to prove it couldn’t have happened.

Some of the dinos are full-sized – frightfully full-sized. Others are scaled down. Still others are full-sized, but look scaled down. This includes one of the best-known dinosaurs, the velociraptor. In real life, it was not as big as the movies would have us believe. In fact, it was about the size of a medium-sized dog.

“They’re much smaller than most people expect,” says Carolyn “The velociraptor was able to be so quick by being pretty small. If it was much bigger, it would have been much slower.”

“But really there were a lot of dinosaurs that were small, like today’s modern birds and modern reptiles, so not everybody expects there to be a lot of cute dinosaurs.”

“So we’re constantly consulting with paleontologists to update our dinosaur models to make them as accurate as possible.”