The Postal Service will release its Tyrannosaurus Rex stamps Thursday, Aug. 29.
The 16-stamp pane features four designs of the dinosaur in growth stages from infancy to adulthood.
The first design depicts a newly hatched T. rex covered with downy feathers, while the second illustrates a T. rex approaching through a forest clearing.
The third stamp shows the same young adult T. rex with a young Triceratops — both dinosaurs are seen in fossil form — and the fourth stamp depicts a bare-skinned juvenile T. rex chasing a primitive mammal.
Two of the stamps show movement when rotated. You can see the skeletal remains with and without flesh and watch as the approaching T. rex suddenly lunges forward. This lenticular printing method was first used by the Postal Service to produce the rabbit and hat stamp on the Art of Magic souvenir pane in 2018.
“The Nation’s T. rex,” the young adult depicted on the third and fourth stamps, was discovered on federal land in Montana and is one of the most studied and important specimens ever found. Its remains are now exhibited at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC.
Because of its ferocity and immensity, the T. rex captures the imagination like no other dinosaur.
With powerful jaws packed in its 4-foot-long skull and banana-sized teeth serrated like steak knives, the T. rex easily bit through the flesh and hefty bones of even large dinosaur prey. Its full-grown weight was 6-10 tons, and its maximum length was about 40 feet.
The T. rex, whose name means “tyrant lizard king,” went extinct 66 million years ago.
Greg Breeding, a USPS art director, designed the stamps with original artwork by scientist and paleoartist Julius T. Csotonyi.
The stamps, which were announced in March, will be available at Post Offices and usps.com.