University of Nebraska State Museum

Mesozoic Gallery

Located on the main floor of the museum, the Paleontology of Nebraska exhibits include the Elephant Hall, Mesozoic Gallery, Fossil Animals, Toren Gallery of Ancient Life. These exhibits display various fossil collections. The museum is known for its vast vertebrate paleontology collection, ranking fifth in the nation.[5] The museum has been gathering its paleontology collections since 1891, when the Director Erwin Barbour began to excavate fossils from Western Nebraska. So far, more than 85,000 vertebrate species have been cataloged. Most of the collections originate from Nebraska. The collections from the Plaeistocene and Cretaceous are from New Mexico and Montana, respectively.[6]

The Elephant Hall is famous for having one of the largest mammoth skeletons in the world. Among them, the museum hosts the largest Columbian mammoth fossil in the world, known as "Archie." It is also the state fossil of Nebraska.[7] Along with the mammoth skeletons, the Hall displays skeletons and models of elephants of various eras. By comparing the structure of the skeletons and the elephants' teeth, visitors can learn about the evolutionary history of the elephants.

The Mesozoic Gallery features skeletons and models of organisms that lived during the Mesozoic era. Along with the fossils of the dinosaurs, the Gallery is famous for its Plesiosaur fossil that was excavated in 2004 from Northeast Nebraska, which is known to be one of the longest marine fossil.[8] The Toren Gallery of Ancient Life includes models of organisms of the Paleozoic era.

The Fossil Animals section displays ancient and current skeletons of rhinos, horses, and camels. Recent donations to the museum are also shown in this area.[9]

Officially opened on February 22, 2013, the Tree of Life exhibit is a relatively recent addition to the museum. It was developed in partnership with Harvard University, Northwestern University, The University of Michigan, and the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.[10] This exhibit combines interactive touchscreen technology with a vast phylogenetic database to provide a fun educational experience for users of all ages. Museum visitors can browse an evolutionary tree showing the evolutionary relationships of more than 70,000 species over 3.5 billion years.[11] It is often difficult to spur an interest in evolutionary concepts, especially in a museum. Since visitors can browse exhibits rather quickly, the Tree of Life exhibit is designed to hold the attention of users. Once a user is actively using the interactive technology, they are more likely to spend enough time to gain a substantial understanding of core ideas in evolutionary science.[12] The University of Nebraska State Museum has incorporated the Tree of Life exhibit into some undergraduate biology courses.

Weapons Throughout Time showcases a large collection of artifacts collected over the years. Officially opened in October 2009, it is one of the older exhibits in the museum. As the name suggests, the bulk of items in the collection were used as tools of survival and combat. Some pieces in the collection include stone arrowheads used by Native Americans in the Great Plains, Amazonian blow darts, Zulu hunting spears, Japanese and Samoan armor, and firearms from Asia, the Middle East, and the Western hemisphere.[13] These artifacts give visitors insight into the culture of the people that created them, and the cultural differences are evident in the artistic design. Some items are over 9,000 years old.[14]

The Explore Evolution exhibit was opened in September 2005. It was designed to educate the public about important evolutionary concepts using the work of several evolutionary scientists. The scientists whose work is included within the exhibit are: Charles Wood, Sherily Fritz and Edward Theriot, Cameron Currie, Kenneth Kaneshiro, Rosemary and Peter Grant, Svante Paabo and Henrik Kaessmann, and Philip Gingerich.[15] This exhibit simplifies and reinforces the work of the scientists mentioned above using videos, models, and interactive components. Although it is designed to stimulate curiosity in young museum visitors, the Explore Evolution exhibit contains vast stores of information that will keep even the most educated evolutionary scientist interested.

The Hall of Nebraska Wildlife exhibit offers a collection of wildlife dioramas that allow visitors to appreciate animals, birds, and plants from different Nebraskan regions. One component of this exhibit includes an installed modern Bison bison, a presumed descendant of the Nebraskan Ice Age Bison antiquus, an extinct species since 4,000–5,000 years ago.[16] Additionally, in February 2008, the Nebraskan State Museum installed its first mountain lion provided by the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission after it was struck and killed by traffic on Interstate 80. Chemical analysis of the mountain lion's claws suggests it had travelled from the Black Hills of South Dakota along the Missouri or Elkhorn Rivers.[17] The exhibit also displays African animals that fall on the Red List of Threatened Animals, a compiled list of all threatened animals. A few shown animals include the Kobus ellipsiprymnus (Swimming Waterbuck), a medium-sized antelope that is at a "lower risk," and the Diceros bicornis (Black Rhinoceros) who are now "critically endangered" due to overhunting.

Planetarium Entrance

Mueller Planetarium was a gift to the university from Ralph S. Mueller, a Cleveland industrialist and inventor of the alligator clip.[18] The planetarium was completed and dedicated in 1958, becoming the first planetarium in Nebraska. More than 20,000 people attended shows at the planetarium during its first six months of operation.

Jack Dunn hosted the planetarium's first laser light show featuring electronic music using a car speaker surround system and two slide projectors in 1977.[19] Visually impaired audiences brought to attention that it was difficult to see the stars projected during laser shows, and the Mueller Planetarium began working to improve the quality of the show. The "laser star show" developed specifically for the visually impaired became an official project of the International Laser Display Association (ILDA) in 1993, and the program was shared internationally with laser display companies. Through working with Hayden by ILDA of California, the show was optimized using a high-contrast dots and lines display to aid the visually impaired.[20] Mueller Planetarium received a First Place Award for Outstanding Laser Display in November 1993. In 2006, Dunn intensified the light show by installing a full-dome system using spherical mirrors that project shows across the 30-foot-wide dome.[19] As of 2016, the Mueller Planetarium still offers laser light shows along with informational shows depicting the solar system and Nebraskan night skies.[21]