Photo courtesy of wikipedea When you think of a camel, you probably imagine it standing in the middle of a North African or Asian desert. Nowadays camels live in the arid climates of the Middle East and Central Asia, but that wasn’t always the case. Let’s not forget that the closest relatives of Old […]
Photo courtesy of wikipedia https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Eurypterus_Paleoart.jpg Eurypterids: you may never have heard of them, but you will come to fear them. They appear in the fossil record during the Ordivician Period, over 400 million years ago, and finally went extinct about 250 million years ago during the Great Permian Extinction. Because of their appearance, Eurypterids […]
Winding through the Paleozoic section of our Morian Hall of Paleontology, past the trilobotes, the placoderms, the Sea Scorpions and the other terrifying creatures that roamed the earth at that time, you will eventually come to what we affectionately call our “wall of poop“. It’s in the Permian section of the Hall, to the right […]
Unlike the pieces on display here, HMNS is not a preserved relic. This museum is a living organism, constantly changing and evolving. Our exhibits are by no means all-encompassing, but we strive to always keep what we have on the cutting edge of science and museum design. As part of that effort, we have recently […]
Photo courtesy of wikipedia Charles Wilson Peale: ever heard of him? Most people haven’t heard his name, but they probably have seen his work. Peale was one of the most famous portrait artists in the Colonies, and later the new United States, in the late 18th Century. He painted seven portraits of George Washington, some […]
The line between hallowed ground and home is a thin one in Houston. Our city isn’t exactly known for the preservationist spirit of its citizens. Looking out your window at skyscrapers or suburban expanses, you may not see any visible evidence of graveyards, but that’s exactly the problem: You don’t see them because they’re under […]
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, 1971; AOL Time Warner Nope, not the *Hsawaknow but extraordinary beasts instead, arising from where the fantastical and the wondrous collide. Some animals are so exotic that their initial discovery is difficult to comprehend. Stories of griffins, dragons and more may seem like tall tales to us […]
Will Carlson! Earlier this month, we posted a picture of two 3D printed skulls and asked our readers to identify which dinosaur they belonged to for a chance to win their own copy! This ten year old kid was able to identify the 3D printed skull of Deinonychus all by himself, with help […]
The last three evenings have been spent doing a dinosaur cleaning. Three times a year staff and volunteers give up a few of their evenings to dust the mounts in the Hall of Paleontology. We clean the mounts using a variety of tools ranging from low tech dust clothes and soft brushes to pretty fancy vacuums […]
Mesosaurus was an unusual reptile. It looked kind of like crocodiles do today, with a long, thin body, eyes located on top of the skull, webbed feet, and an average length of about 16 inches. It also lived kind of like many crocodiles do today, in freshwater environments. Possibly one of the weirdest things about […]
