Hello friends and Hivers. Today I take you on journey to a really cool museum I visited on Friday. I had to jump in the car and travel about 65 miles to the city of Lincoln, Nebraska to visit The University of Nebraska State Museum- Morrill Hall. What I seen today was hundreds of fossils. Some native to the state of Nebraska and others from around my country.
So what is up with the the large bronze statue with husks? It's a real scale sized replica of a Columbia Mammoth named Archie. It is the largest fossil specimen of this species in the world. You will see him soon as he displayed here 😊 Interesting fact, mammoth bones and tusks were found about 100 yards from this statue.
This can be a very busy area to visit. You see the front entrance to Veteran's Memorial Stadium is also in the same parking lot. You don't want to visit it on game day or when something big is planned there. The seating capacity of the stadium can sit 85,000 people. If you disregard this warning plan on parking and walking great distances.
I walk into the museum pay my $10 entrance fee and straight ahead is an exhibit of elephant descendancy. Take a look at these bones and fossils the far left is modern day Asia and Africa elephants.
The center piece is old Archie. He was found in 1922 and his kind roamed the Earth from 1 million years ago to about 10,000 years ago. He stands at over 15 and half feet tall and weighed over 24,000 lbs. That's large and in charge right? Sorry you have to see my mug but how could I have left without a picture with him. Only 3 counties of the 93 counties in Nebraska have not found Mammoth fossils. No wonder it's named the state fossil.
Perfect Tusker
Long Jawed Tusker
Stegomastodon
American Mastodon
Prod Tusker
Lower Jaw/tusks of a Shovel Tusker
More lower jaws of certain species
Above are many of the elephant species that would have roamed in Nebraska as early as 10,500 years ago and as far back as 14 million years ago. Many of these are similar but what's interesting is some of these have lower tusks in additional to upper ones. The four tuskers all ended with the Stegomastodon. The fossil of the Perfect Tusker is the world's only mounted full skeleton of its kind. These species met there decline due to warmer and drier climates as many of the glaciers retreated. It is documented that early North American people also hunted the Mastodons and Mammoths back some10,000 years ago.
Above we have a giant camel which is much larger than the modern day specie. Modern day camel's humps are derived from fat but the giant camel's are from bone and muscle. From 6 million to 46 million years ago camels only lived in North America. Around 6 million years ago camels migrated to other countries.
Here we have a bad ass mammal, Sabor Tooth Tiger. At full sized it's about the size of adult male lion. I can't help but to look at him and call him Diego from the animation movie series, Ice Age. I had some fun moving the wheel on the exhibit opening and closing the jaw. Tigers are fierce but this one with the the ability to open up it jaws wider to pierce its prey with it elongated teeth seem a bit more frightening.
We have a Ground Sloth fossil skeleton above. It lived for millions of years before going extinct about 11,000 years ago. Slow moving but having some size it wasn't on the menu for all predators. I never realized they were of this size. Again I can't help but think it's name is Sid, haha. Yes from the same movie above.
Bison Evolution
Bison Antiquus- Antique Bison
Bison Latifrons- Long Horned Bison
The Bison have been roaming North America for a long time. It's a sad thought that the modern day Bison almost became extinct. The modern day Bison is the smallest followed by the Antique Bison. That leaves the Long Horned Bison the largest and also the oldest. The Antique Bison became extinct about 8000 years ago while the Long Horned Bison went extinct nearly 20,000 years ago. The last photo is a portrait that represents hunting done by the Paleoindian people who hunted a lot of these now extinct mammals in North America between 8,000 to 15,000 years ago.
There is a lot more to share at this museum and I will continue with it at another time. There's more mammals, some dinosaurs, and a little surprise.
Take care, stay safe and have a great rest of your weekend. Until next time!
I've visited a few Paleontology museums a found then fascinating! It's so hard to imagine those massive creatures living right here!
Thank you...This one was much aimed at the ice ages and the mammals that were in this area. It's good a lot of them aren't around no more 😊
If they were here we probably wouldn't be any longer!
Hmm thousands of years later we might be dong fossils, haha. Have a great rest of your weekend!
I went to see Ötzi, the 5,300-year-old mummy found murdered high in the Alps with an arrow in his back, in his custom cooling chamber in the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano, Italy.
Who knows what the future holds!
That would be cool to see. Yeah anything is possible in this world.
My husband graduated from UNL in the mid-1980s but he never mentioned this museum.
He KNOWS I'd insist on going!
THANK YOU for the great photos and fascinating history of those who walked this land before us!
Haha well I'm sure there's more to show there now than back than. Hopefully soon I'll be going to one of the public fossil fields a few hours from there. Thanks for stopping by 😊
Wow... Those remain live for many years... I haven't seen some of those animals yet in person, hehe.
!PIZZA
Haha ya compared to dinosaurs some of these were alive not that long ago..8,000 to 20,000 years ago is nothing on millions of years. Happy Sunday and hope everything goes well 🙏
Some of them are bit scary but others like elephant I saw them here in the zoo. They are quite friendly😁
Yes a little of both maybe but I don't know if the ice age mammals were very friendly. Elephants remember a lot so I'm thinking the Mammoths were the same. I'm sure they seen others of their kind being hunted. I can't imagine one charging at me with those tusks. 😲 😂
🤣🤣even it seems friendly, I would be having a second thought before going next to them. I saw in the zoo some people were feeding them apples. Have the barrier of course.😛😁
That prod tusker looks pretty wicked. I had no idea there were so many mammoth species. Seeing the life-size replicas is really neat because you can get a feel for what it would have been like to see a living one. What a fun museum tour 😊.
Yes that bronze one outdoors really puts things into prospective how large it was. The Prod Tusker super cool and you can only see a real fossil one here :) Now the real displays of fossils are cool too. A few were mixtures of actual fossils and casts. There were some dinosaur skulls that were casts but I just looked and walked by. Oh yes a fun tour can't wait to wrap up part II!
Yeah, the cars in the parking lot look pretty small in comparison to the bronze statue. Did you go by yourself? I'm looking forward to seeing part II! It's been a minute since I've visited a good museum.
I usually go by myself on these ventures. I like looking and seeing on my own watch. I did invite a friend to go this time which is something I rarely do but they had things to do.
Ah, I see. Some things are more enjoyable as a party of one 💁♀️. Nothing wrong with that!
I didn't know there were so many fossils in that area! Many interesting things to see there around!!!
Enjoy the weekend!!
!LUV
!LOLZ
Well in Nebraska a lot of ice age fossils. A few active fossil beds and one in particular that has a walking path that the public can see. Happy Sunday Amiga.
!LUV
!HUG
Cool, honestly I don't know much about that ancient time !LOLZ
I saw here some fossils too but not much, good to learn something more 😉
I sent 1.0 HUG on behalf of @coolmidwestguy.
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Ooh wow
The museum is really beautiful and has some great sculptures
Yes and I got caught up in a lot of different things. I checked out three floors of exhibits & attractions. I forgot they recently added a fourth floor and didn't notice an entrance to the top level. Well worth the entrance fee checking out this one 😊
Wow this is amazing😍 I want to visit such museums🤩🤩I hope you enjoyed your day 😊
It was a nice relaxing time. Thanks for dropping by 😊
Yes 💯you're welcome🥰
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