The Natural History Project

What's been referred to as the Natural History Project was a concept for a dinosaur film conceived by Jim Henson. Likely meant as a project for the Creature Shop combining puppetry and animatronics, its development with art designer William Stout produced at least some concept paintings of characters to be featured in the film.

According to a set of William Stout trading cards, the story involved a gruff old parasaurolophus who serves as a guide and teacher to a young corythysaur named Cory. Sketches also exist for a pair of dim-witted pachycephalosaurs, a "woeful" ankylosaur, a "haughty" styracosaur and a trio of villainous velociraptors to provide comical relief for the film's villainos monster, a tryannosaurus rex.

The film had been placed on the back burner until Stout bumped into Henson during a visit at Walt Disney Imagineeering in May 1990. Stout had been informed that work could resume on the project in two weeks, but Henson passed away only days later.