Missouri Institute of Natural Science
/My daughter and I visited the Missouri Institute of Natural Science on Black Friday! Neither of us had been there before even though both of us had heard about it and were interested. We got there just after 11 and spent about 45 minutes looking at their exhibits and shop.
Their triceratops (name Henry) dominates the center of the largest space they have. It is part fossilized bones and part 3-D printed ‘bones’ to make a complete skeleton. Awesome!
There were some 3D printers to the side of the displays…it probably takes considerable time to create the pieces of a complete skeleton; there are pieces of a second dinosaur that they are printing and collecting under Henry.
A prehistoric fish was still in rock. I zoomed in for a closer view of the front fins.
Evidence of past eras of plants were also on display. Pinecones and dawn redwood!
A raptor (dinosaur…not modern bird) egg nest was in one of the cases.
And, of course, there were shark teeth…and modern shark jaws to compare. There were obviously sharks in the past that were much larger than any we have today!
Ammonites….the rock was donated and there no indication where it was found.
The display case of coprolites (dung that has been fossilized) was in a corner of one the museum bathrooms!
There was a case of trilobite fossils. I remember one of my teenage friends being keen to find them!
There is a display of lead mining equipment – part of the history of this part of Missouri.
It was worth the visit and I might take guests from out of town to the place (a good choice on a rainy day!).
There were more people arriving as we were leaving…we headed to lunch. The timing was great since by the time we finished our lunch there was a line out the door of the restaurant (the Black Friday shoppers had worked up an appetite).
