EXTREME MAMMALS: Odd Creatures, Unusual Features at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County

Model of Indricotherium at the Natural History Museum of LA County

Imagine a furry creature more than fifteen feet tall living in your back yard–but only if you were around 33 million years ago. This giant animal, weighing in real life more than 20 tons, is Indricotherium and once lived all across Eurasia. Today, as a life-size model, it greets visitors to the new Extreme Mammals exhibit at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.

Ambulocetus

This special exhibit, on view from May to September 10, 2017, focuses on mammals that have unusually developed body parts ranging from a walking whale with giant feet (Ambulocetus), bony body armor (Glyptodont) and even venomous feet (the platypus).

Glyptodont

While some of the animals featured in the exhibit are long extinct and known only from their fossil bones, such as Repenomamus, who feasted on small dinosaurs in the Mesozoic, others, such as the Tazmanian Devil, native to Australia, are alive and well today.

Mountain lion and photo of one prowling the hills of Griffith Park above the city of Los Angeles

The final animal shown in the exhibit is a mountain lion, a creature that has managed to survive even in populated areas like Los Angeles.
Visiting the exhibit requires a separate ticket after entering the museum. It is free to members of the museum.

BUTTERFLIES ALL AROUND: New Butterfly Pavilion, Natural History Museum, Los Angeles

A Pipevine Swallowtail butterfly, a California native species

Butterflies are nature’s jewels of the air. When I was a child, one of our many family hobbies was collecting butterflies–searching the meadows and fields of Minnesota and Wisconsin in summertime for monarchs, fritillaries, white and yellow sulphers, mourning cloaks, and more, catching them in our butterfly net so we could see them up close. It was always a special thrill to find a swallowtail with its elegant wings.

Inside the Butterfly Pavilion at the Natural History Museum of LA County

Last week, I made a special trip to the new Butterfly Pavilion at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, to see some of the same species of butterflies again, as they flitted from flower to flower inside a large enclosed outdoor exhibit. Butterflies were everywhere--on the flowers, clinging to the netting, resting on the ground and flapping through the air. All of the more than 30 species of butterflies in the exhibit are native to North America and many live in California. Large illustrated cards are available to carry around and identify the species.

 The back side of the card illustrates some of the interesting facts about the shapes, sizes and colors of the butterflies in the exhibit:

• For some butterflies, bright colors and patterns help males and females find one another.

  

  A Julia Longwing butterfly, male

• Colors can sometimes help butterflies blend into their surroundings and hide from predators.

  

  The pattern on the Malachite butterfly's wings mimics sunlit leaves

• A few butterflies taste really bad. Predators remember bold colors and avoid them.

  

  The Monarch, a native in California, depends on milkweed plants for breeding

• Some wing patterns look like large eyes of other larger animals and “fool” potential predators.

  

  the White Peacock butterfly has several eye-spots

  To see the butterflies, you must reserve a ticket for timed entry. I visited in the middle of the day when the pavilion was warm and full of sunshine and the butterflies were busy feeding at the various flowers. After 30 minutes, the museum staff shooed me out so the next group of people with timed tickets could come in. I would have liked to stay longer--the thrill of seeing butterflies up close never goes away.
  The Butterfly Pavilion is located outside the south entrance of the Natural History Museum. It is a permanent structure that will be open seasonally. This year it will be open for one month, September 16 - October 16, 2016. For directions and parking, click HERE.

South Entrance of the museum

GIANT SEA REPTILES OF THE DINOSAUR AGE at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, CA

Mosasaur skeleton from Kansas at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County

Several years ago, when I was researching my book about giant sea reptiles, I visited the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County in Exposition Park to view the fossil skeleton of a mosasaur. The huge mouth and sharp teeth made me glad that I wasn't meeting this creature in real life! In the late Cretaceous Period, about 80 million years ago, these huge reptiles were the supreme predators of the sea. But, like the dinosaurs, mosasaurs became extinct 65 million years ago. We know about them from their fossil remains.

Fossils of mosasaurs have been found all over the world, including Antarctica. A recent discovery in Hungary reveals that mosasaurs lived in both freshwater and saltwater. They swam in North America’s inland sea, and their fossils are especially numerous in Kansas and South Dakota. The largest known species, Tylosaurus, grew to be up to 50 feet long and weighed up to 11 tons.

Mosasaurs were excellent swimmers and propelled themselves through the water with a side-to-side motion of their long tails. Most of them ambushed their prey, making a swift attack and catching it by surprise. Bite marks on fossil nautiloids show that they were preyed upon by sea reptiles like mosasaurs.

Chambered nautiluses are still swimming in the ocean today.

Mosasaurs probably ate anything they could find, including other mosasaurs. The preserved stomach contents of a Tylosaurus found in South Dakota contains the remains of a smaller mosasaur, a bird, a fish, and what may have been a shark.

Mosasaurs, along with the icthyosaurs and plesiosaurs, also extinct, were the largest reptiles ever known to swim the Earth’s oceans. They are part of the amazing diversity of life during the Dinosaur Age.

You can read more about these fascinating animals in my book Giant Sea Reptiles of the Dinosaur Age, illustrated with beautiful water color paintings by Laurie Caple.