Mammoths, Giant Snake and Quilts highlight Lincoln Museums

What do a mammoth and a quilt have in common?

At the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, they are the stars of museums on campus.

Morrill Hall is home to the Nebraska State Museum. It offers a look into the paleontology history of Nebraska, as well as modern day wildlife.

Historically, mammoths played a large part in Nebraska’s history. Mammoth fossils have been found in most of the state’s counties, according to www.statesymbolsusa.org.

One of the world’s largest mammoth remains was discovered in the state and is on display at Morrill Hall.

Mammoths were huge animals, standing 10-12 feet high. They were covered with hair, so they have been referred to as the wooly mammoth.

In addition to mammoths, the museum has fossils of Tuskers (early versions of elephants).

A prehistoric camel is on display, as well. Nebraska once had the world’s largest population of camels.

A walk through the museum shows a lot of history (duh!).

A giant relative of today’s armadillo stands on display – a Gluptodon. It could stretch 10 feet long and weight two tons. The animal lived about 2.5 million years ago.

Morrill Hall is currently home to a fantastic exhibit – Titanboa! The exhibit lasts until late September.

It’s a scale model of a giant snake that lived in South America 60 million years ago.

The 48-foot snake is considered the largest in history. The model is massive in size. No way would I like to come across that on a walk in the woods.

The scarier thought is Titanboa may not be the longest snake yet. They found its remains on an upper layer of digging, so there could be even larger snake remains deeper in the Colombian dig.

The snake find has a Nebraska connection. The paleontologist who discovered the remains is from the University of Florida. He confirmed that the remains were indeed a snake with the assistance of a University of Nebraska professor – considered a snake expert, according to the story’s video.

Moving along (quickly) from Titanboa, we checked out an exhibit on the lower level of the museum regarding animals in the region.

Exhibits highlighted include Midwestern animals such as deer, foxes, bison and Sandhill cranes.

For more information on the Nebraska State Museum at Morrill Hall, please check out the website at http://museum.unl.edu/.

Once we finished at Morrill Hall, we checked out the quilt museum on the east campus, a little more than a mile from the main campus.

The International Quilt Study Center and Museum is home to both quilt exhibits and research.

Our focus was on the quilts on display.

I went in thinking it was an exhibit of old quilts that our grandmas would have made. My Grandma Trudell could make quilts.

However, was I ever surprised!

The quilts on display were pieces of art. They covered historical periods, such as early Welsh and Amish periods. But, they were pieces of art. Beautiful to look at.

There were three galleries we visited.

The first had the Welsh and Amish quilts.

The second had a view of other historical periods. One quilt was made in the 1850s.

The third gallery had a special exhibit on log cabin style quilts. They have straight lines and angles. They really stand out and catch your eye.

For more information on the quilt museum, please visit http://www.quiltstudy.org/.

If you are in Lincoln and have a couple of hours available, you may want to check out the museums. Each museum has an admission fee of $6 per adult, very reasonable and worth the price.