By Tim Binnall
Some sticky-fingered ne'er-do-wells in Florida managed to steal a rather sizeable statue of a baby velociraptor that had been stationed outside of a museum ahead of a forthcoming exhibit. The weird heist reportedly occurred sometime late Monday evening or early Tuesday morning on the grounds of the Museum of Archaeology, Paleontology & Science located in the community of New Port Richey. The animatronic dinosaur, which measures approximately eight feet long and four feet tall, was one of three such pieces that were to be included in a Dinos & Dragons Exhibit set for construction this week.
However, when museum director Charles Zidar showed up for work on Tuesday morning, he was surprised to see that someone had broken into a gated area where the statue had been housed and made off with the 60-to-80-pound piece. Theorizing that the thieves "hauled it off in a pickup truck," he mused that "it's probably on display in some teenager's bedroom, though I don't know how they'll explain the presence of a life-size dinosaur to their parents." Zidar subsequently alerted authorities to the theft and police are now on the hunt for the $6,000 statue.
Ironically enough, the museum director says that on the day before the piece went missing, he had actually marveled to a colleague how fortunate they were that nothing had ever been stolen from the site and he even went so far as to knock on wood following the eerily prescient observation. "I guess I jinxed it," Zidar jokingly mused. Considering the piece's hefty price tag, the troublemakers who took the statue would probably be wise to return it now before cops catch up to them, especially since the museum director says that they simply wish to recover the statue and, in turn, will forgive the individuals behind dino heist.