Posts filed under 'Uncategorized'
November 7th, 2007
Burpee Museum invites you & your extended family to join us for a weekend of wild activities November 23 & 24. Wilderness Weekend activities encourage interactive family learning opportunities and fun for visitors of any age.
Grab you camera and get your family photo taken in front of our polar bear or Jane, the juvenile T.Rex (exclusive up close photo is $5 extra). Activities include:
Friday, November 23
11am-4pm
Birds Galore!
“Hoo” Haven Wildlife & Education facility will be on hand for an adventure in aviary wildlife - complete with live birds of prey. Specific show time at 12:15 pm, but birds and animals will be on display from 11am-4pm. Find out what to do if you find an injured or orphaned bird. Dissect a pellet to determine the birds’ last meal. Take-home wild bird crafts.
“Hoo” Haven is the North American facility where orphaned and injured birds and animals are brought for individual treatment and rehabilitation. This rehab allows them to be nursed back to health before being released back into the wild.
Activities are free with paid museum admission.
Saturday, November 24
11am -4pm
Native American attractions
The fall harvest has been completed and winter is coming. Experience the preparation that Native Americans made for survival during the long cold months in the wilderness. Participate in the ever-important harvest activities of shelling & grinding.
Members of the Native American Awareness Community group will be on hand demonstrating beading, corn grinding, & storytelling. Make & take wilderness crafts including corn husk dolls are included. Activities are free with paid museum admission.
Saturday, November 24
11am, 1pm & 3pm
Behind the Scenes – Collections & Fossil Prep Lab Tour
Burpee’s Collections Manager, Scott Williams will host guided tour of Burpee’s Collections. Want to see how dinosaurs are prepared or view many of the mounted birds Burpee used to display when the museum was in the Barnes mansion? Now is your chance! Join Scott as he gives an in-depth tour of the specimens behind closed doors. The collection houses over 1,000 mammals, 4,400 birds, 250 reptiles, African lion, 9 ft. polar bear, 14 ½ ft. American crocodile and other neat stuff. There is an additional $2 admission for the Collections & Prep Lab tour. Special admission price to attend both days $6/museum members, $7.50/public.
Thanksgiving Holiday Hours:
Thursday, Nov 22 – closed
Friday, Nov 23 – 10am-5pm
Saturday, Nov 24 – 10am-5pm
Sunday, Nov 25 – Noon -5pm
For more info, phone 815-965-3433 or log on to www.burpee.org.
October 30th, 2007
By: Scott Williams, Burpee Collections Manager
In 2005 when we finally got Jane our juvenile T.Rex on display one of the concerns I had was, “Will Burpee be a one hit wonder?” ……..in the dinosaur discovery sense?
After the flurry of work we completed during our 2007 field season and what we presented at the annual SVP (Society of Vertebrate Paleontology) convention in
Austin, TX, I know that my fears were unfounded. The SVP convention is the biggest convention in North America for vertebrate paleontology, and all the big names like Jack Horner, Philip Currie, Bob Bakker, Greg Erickson, etc, go there to here talks, see new specimens and network with one another. I am proud to say there were three presentations that involved Burpee specimens and staff.
One of my lab preparators and a Northern Illinois University graduate student, Joshua Matthews, and I did a presentation on “Homer” our juvenile Triceratops. The presentation explained the CSI of the “Homer” site and the evidence that we have to show we have the remains of three different dinosaurs buried at the site.
The presentation was very well received and we plan to turn it into a short scientific paper for publication in a journal. So now we can officially say that the
Burpee Museum of Natural History has found the 1st, bona-fide Triceratops bonebed! This is very significant since although bonebeds have been found for other horned dinosaurs, this is the 1st one ever found for a dinosaur that science has known about for over 120 years. Because of the number of specimens and that they all appear to be juveniles, perhaps this indicates that they grouped together when they were young.
The other presentation was done by Joe Peterson, another NIU grad student and Burpee’s Curator of Earth Science, Michael Henderson on some interesting injuries on Jane’s skull. The injuries appear to be the result of bite marks from another Tyrannosaur. If this is the case, it would show good evidence that tyrannosaurs interacted with one another at some level. Perhaps Jane and another tyrannosaur got into a fight over some food, or perhaps she was playing with another juvenile tyrannosaur and got hurt, the possibilities are endless.
The final presentation was given by me and Mike Henderson on how to prepare these great Permian vertebrate fossils that we have been collecting from a quarry in
Oklahoma. The Permian period (250 million years ago) was a very important time in the evolution of all land vertebrates, all your modern lines of reptiles and the ancestors of mammals can trace their heritage to this period. At the end of this period nearly 90% of everything went extinct. The quarry preserves many cave and fissure fill deposits. No doubt primitive reptiles and amphibians went into these caves looking for food, water or protection from the hot, dry Permian climates and died. Another significant point to this site is that 2-3 new species of primitive amphibians and reptiles a year, are being described from this site, so it is possible that in all the material we collected from this site, there could be some new species to describe.
Of course there was a lot of talk about our new site in the Cow Dung Reservoir
Utah. The BLM (Bureau of Land Management – agency of the federal government)agent forUtah had visited the site prior to the meeting and was very excited. He described the site as a Dinosaur National Monument #2! He is thrilled that Burpee will be starting to work there as soon as next Spring 08. While at the site, he saw two different types of sauropods (big long necked dinosaurs), as well as Camptosaurus and Stegosaurus. While he was talking to me a small crowd formed around us and word of our new bonebed quickly made its way through the convention.
As big of a year that I thought 2007 was for Burpee, I think 2008 is going to be bigger. I hope you can join us for one of our expeditions in Montana or Utah or at a minimum keep up to date via this blog.
Reminder – PaleoFest 2008 is March 1 & 2. We will be unveiling the skull of Homer, our juvenile Triceratops.
October 15th, 2007
Burpee Museum of Natural History was started in 1942 by a self-taught naturalist, Milt Mahlburg. Many described the original museum as a small little “cabinet of curiosities”. Today, BurpeeMuseum is 65 years stronger and celebrating our longevity by opening three new unique museum exhibits.
Saturday, October 13 we opened three exciting new exhibits including:
Dunkleosteus – the demon of the Devonian is a new permanent exhibit featuring a skull cast of a Dunkleosteus. “Dunk” was a giant armored fish that lived during the Devonian Period 360 Million Years ago. At that time in history the oceans covered vast portions ofNorth America. “Dunk” grew to be about 25-30 feet in length, weighed about 3 tons and was an apex predator. Its skull and jaws were made up of bony plates and it had a cartilaginous body. Recent studies show that this monster had a bite force of over 8000 pounds (4 tons); it could crush or bite off anything that got into its mouth. Stop by and come face to face with this demon from the Devonian.
Native American points exhibit is a special anthropology collection donated by Herb Page. The collection is a Native American collection and consists of arrowheads, points and hand tools all collected by Herb’s grandfather between the 1880’s and 1930’s. The collection comes from one location in Litchfield, IL. What is truly remarkable about the collection is the span of time it includes. There are several Clovis points in the collection that date back 12,000 years as well as points that are as young as 400 years old. This means that this area was a very popular spot and generations of Native Americans returned to this spot over 12,000 years.
Natural history art exhibit is a new temporary Natural History Art exhibit featuring the artwork of Erica Lyn Huppe. Erica is a graduate from the Milwaukee Institute of Art and has award winning pieces in her portfolio. Erica’s collection will be comprised of sketches and paintings. Some standout pieces will include a Jane exhibit portrait, Montana Badlands Landscapes, portraits of Burpee’s extinct birds like the Carolina Parakeet, Ivory Billed Woodpeckers, and Passenger Pigeon.
Museum originals – Burpee family items & Mahlburg memorabiliaAlong with the new exhibit openings we will dust off some well-known items from our collections – which will be on display in the Mahlburg Room on Saturday from 11am-3pm and Sunday from noon to 3pm. Come see the shrunken head, the 14 ½ foot American crocodile, variety of large mammals and more!
Museum hours are: Monday-Saturday 10 am to 5 pm and Sunday 12 noon to 5 pm Admission is $5 for adults and $4 for children ages 3-17. (Admission is FREE for members and every Wednesday for the public.) The annual membership fee is $60 for families or grandparents and $50 for an individual. Free parking is available at Burpee
Museum at 737 North Main Street or in Riverfront Museum Park parking lot door at 711 North Main Street. For more info, phone 815-965-3433 or log on to www.burpee.org.
