Only have an hour to spare, and want to make the most of it? The newly renovated Peabody, with 50% more exhibit space, has three floors of spectacular new exhibitions. Susan Butts, director of collections and research, Kailen Rogers, associate director, exhibitions, and Chris Norris, director of public programs selected 12 stellar exhibits on the first floor, which chronologically tells the history of life on Earth. And you can see them all in an hour!
A family of Pteranodons greets visitors at the front entrance of the Peabody. Suspended above the information desk, the trio features dad, (upper left), mom, (upper right), and babies, (left windowsill). These models are based on 80-million-year-old fossils discovered in Kansas. Perched high above the heads of excited visitors, they rarely go unnoticed by younger visitors.
Don’t miss the largest complete sea scorpion fossil in the world (far right). Distantly related to modern day scorpions, it lived in the ocean and was non-venomous. When the Peabody received the rock, it did not look like much to the untrained eye. A preparator worked together with a curator to identify the edges of the fossil and make the body of the scorpion more visible.
This case, “An Explosion of Life,” explains the Cambrian explosion, a rapid diversification of animal life 508 million years ago preserved in a geological deposit called the Burgess Shale. Fossils from the site, located in Canada, show exceptional preservation. Rare soft tissue from the animals was preserved in addition to shells and skeletons. While the real specimens are scientifically significant, they are not easy for non-specialists to interpret. Detailed models based on scientific research, like the one of Anomalocaris (“weird shrimp”) hanging in the middle panel, help show what the creatures were like when they were alive.
Meet the two stars of the Peabody’s Burke Hall of Dinosaurs just around the corner. Brontosaurus and Stegosaurus dominate the room with updated poses to reflect current scientific understanding. But smaller fossils also impress. New research revealed that there were four spikes on a Stegosaurus tail, not eight, as previously exhibited. After making the change, the Peabody has allowed visitors to touch one of the authentic, 140-million-year-old spikes. “It’s the only way you’d want to encounter a tail spike,” noted a Peabody staff member.
The “Connecticut Dinosaurs” case features more footprints than skeletons. Among the assortment of fossilized foot impressions is this favorite of the Peabody staff. This particular specimen shows two-and-a-half real dinosaur toes and the appearance of the skin in the footprint.
This specimen next to the case with dinosaur toes captures a prehistoric moment in time. It shows dinosaur footprints moving across it in several directions. But what makes this specimen special to Peabody staff members are the pockmarks — the preserved impressions of raindrops. Research indicates that the mud was exactly right for the rain to make its marks, and then it was quickly buried by another flood deposit.
This case holds two eggs; the one on the left is a reproduction of the open one on the right, which is a 50-million-year-old fossil. The fossil was found in Wyoming in the early 1900s by an 11-year-old girl named Lillian on her family’s ranch. The egg cracked after it was laid. The developing bird embryo died, and its blackened bones are inside. Soon after the bird expired, an insect laid eggs on top of the egg. Its larvae, feeding on the contents, were also preserved, as the model on the left shows. Over the course of millions of years, mineral rich water seeped in and created the geode (a rock cavity containing crystals, or other mineral matter) inside the egg, capturing a unique document of the cycle of life.
The oreodonts found in “A World of Change” gallery, are distant relatives of camels, cattle, sheep, and pigs. While you may be unfamiliar with them, they were once one of the most successful types of mammals on the planet, with millions of them wandering across the Midwest. After 40 million years of success, they disappeared, leaving no living descendants. Paleontologists still do not know why.
The fossil bones in this gingham shirt with a single button have never been unwrapped. This shirt, worn in the late 19th century by the person who collected the bones, is evidence that specimens often carry layers of information about the human story of collecting.
The theme of the “The Human Footprint” room and this display shows how humans interacted with the environment and how the environment affected them. Collections staff members and curators talk about the dispersal of humans around the globe, unique because there has only been one human species among so many other species. The vignettes in the cases include agriculture and the simple story of corn. Its plant ancestor, or wild progenitor (top left), was not exactly an enriched meal. But when humans picked out corn’s best qualities and developed them agriculturally over time, the vegetable became a strong and healthy food source for the whole world. It is just one story of humans’ productive and life-giving contributions by natural and artificial selection.
A showstopper near the end of the first-floor exhibit space is the Shasta ground sloth, with the display of its dung in the lower left-hand side winning the popularity contest every time. Considered one of the most unusual items in the museum, the sloth was found in a New Mexico cave where this species was thought to regularly seek shelter. It died when it fell into a pit of bat dung, or guano. The dry atmosphere, the cave’s cooler temperature, and the guano contributed to the natural mummification of the animal. Skin and claws on the hands and feet and keratin claws on the outside of the bone were preserved. Also evident is reddish brown fur on some of the preserved skin.
Adjacent to the first-floor paleontology exhibits is the museum’s new Central Gallery — large, bright, and welcoming with soft, brown leather chairs for resting, eating lunch, or even working, while the skeleton of Archelon, a huge, extinct sea turtle, “swims” above, chased by an attacking mosasaur. Marsh Botanical Garden provided the live plants, which were chosen to thrive in the specific conditions of the space and because they are relatives of the fossil plants on display nearby.
