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When we first got to the museum, my friend group and I didn’t know where to start. The museum was huge, so there was a lot to explore after pictures were taken. After debating, we decided to join Dr. Merck’s tour. We started at the end of the hallway with numerous fossil displays. He was telling us about how this represents the current state of science and then proceeded to point to the ground. There was a black line and as I kept looking down, that was when it dawned on me: there was a huge cladogram throughout this room. The fossils we saw represented different eras in the order that they came about due to evolution. The large tour group was following Dr. Merck around the room and hung onto every word as he explained all things evolution. Something to be highlighted was the placoderms. They had plated skin and an internal skeleton that was completely cartilage. Another thing that I thought was interesting was the Acanthostega. It was a fish that had an open gill and could breathe air and water. It was doing fine until one day, it got a single point mutation and had eight fingers and seven toes! It had no idea how to use them and frequently tried to use its hips every once in a while. An exhibit that was considered outdated was information on turtles. They have been doing science on them since 1995! Shared derived characters for turtles are hard to find because they “erase” their history. Due to this, scientists had previously thought their closest relatives were pareiasaurs. Turns out, their closest relatives are archosaurs, which is an ancestor to birds. Maybe a way to keep newer information conveyed is to provide a digital brochure of the exhibits to keep people well-informed. Once the tour was over, we went to eat food and then proceeded to go on our own journey, taking a self-guided tour.
We ended up going to the hall of North American Animals. It was one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. Their 3D displays were biomes that represented the habitats they lived in. They had mountain goats, musk ox’s, black bears, cottontails, coyotes, whitetail deers, canada lynx’s, beavers, porcupines, etc. They all looked so realistic! We got so entranced that my group splitted up without realizing. They set them up based on the types of biomes that are present in North America. One of the animals I found really interesting was the Collared Peccary. They are a distant cousin from the domestic pig, having a similar barrel-shaped body and dantier legs and feet. They are social and also travel in herds of at least a dozen. Since they live in southern Texas and Arizona, they eat agave and pear cactus. Another interesting species was the Abert’s squirrel. They have a similar build to the squirrels we know today, but they have perky ears with little tufts of hair to keep them warm in the winter. They lived in Kaibab National Forest in Arizona. For both of these animals, it would have been nice to get information on how they interacted with other species. In North America, there are seven biomes; tundra, boreal forest, desert and scrubland, tropical and subtropical forest, temperature forest, temperate grassland and shrubland, and subtropical and flooded grassland. They explain how there are some species that can thrive in a multitude of environments, while others can only survive in one. The only thing I did was describe the plant’s role in a biome, aside from an animal’s food.Once we finished, we decided to take a trip to Dr. Fletcher’s tour about natural history preservation. Something that gets preserved are birds. They do not lose pigmentation, but their skeletons are not kept because they are too sensitive. Another type of way specimens are preserved are through wet specimens. They use formaldehyde and ethanol to prevent them from rotting out, like toads. They do not lose pigmentation and a record could be kept of what they ate. Something that is outdated are field notebooks that are taken to draw what scientists see. For them, every detail matters. Value is lost without them and art is dying out because there are notebooks and computers to type things. Natural history specimens are useful because they can tell us many things about animals and our past. This information could help us improve for future generations. Once we finished that, we walked around an insect exhibit before it was time for the Space Show, called Worlds Beyond Earth. They were talking about how the planets and solar systems came to be. They also talked about how vast space really is and how Earth is the only habitat that can suit us so far, encouraging us to take care of our planet. I believe that it was based on measurements and special effects. Due to the sheer geometry and data that was given to us, special effects really just brought it to life. The museum has audio and visual aid descriptions of what is being presented. They also provided sensory displays and had games to engage and teach the younger kids.