The exhibition features 80 specimens that include extinct mammoths, mastodons, and some of their Ice Age neighbors, like horses, giant ground sloths, and giant armadillos. Colorful interpretive banners feature artists' reconstructions of the animals and photo murals of paleontologists at work.
The last Ice Age ended about 10,000 years ago during the Pleistocene epoch. The Earth was much colder than it is now; glaciers and ice sheets extended over large areas of North America. To survive on the open tundra, exposed to bitter cold temperatures and high winds adjacent to continental glaciers, animals needed to conserve heat by increasing the volume of their bodies as compared to their surface area. In short, these animals were big!
Early proboscideans (large beasts with tusks and a long, flexible trunk) entered North America when a land bridge from Asia allowed passage during periods of low sea levels. Mastodons, shoveltuskers, and spiraltuskers arrived about 15 million years ago. Mammoths came later, about 2 million years ago.
The 2,000 square-foot exhibition explores many unresolved questions of current scientific interest. Did humans play a role in the extinction of North American mammals during the Ice Age? Can we determine the diets of these ancient giants? Is it possible to reconstruct the climates and ecosystems in which they lived? Visitors will leave with new knowledge about the Ice Age, the fossil record, and an appreciation of science as an ongoing process.
Tusks! was developed by the Florida Museum of Natural History and is free with Museum admission. The exhibit is made possible with support from our sponsors: Dr. Gregory Baker Orthodontics; Drs. Cohen, Rogerson and Bowman; Stephen Fucini, DMD; Roger Phillips, DMD; and media sponsors WCAX-TV Channel 3 Television and The Point Radio. Grant funding was provided by Jane's Trust. -- www.montshire.org
Posted January 26th, 2007 by ruzik_tuzik
