Rockhounding Around: Mississippi Museum of Natural Science

The last day I was in Jackson I went to the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science (here's some links http://www.msnaturalscience.org/ and at Wikipedia Mississippi_Museum_of_Natural_Science ). It was suppose to rain that day and I thought a museum would be the perfect place to go and spend the morning especially since I had to check out of the place we were staying.

I have always loved science museums and looked forward to seeing this one.
Once again I felt like it was small but what they had was done extremely well. I enjoyed seeing it was happy I had the whole morning to explore it.
The museum in located in the Lefleur's Bluff State Park and when you get there you have to pay to get into the park but I was also able to get the museum fee included in the parking/park fee too. I just wished the weather would have been nicer so I could have enjoyed the park afterwards. As it turned out I timed everything just right for visiting the museum and then getting to where I needed to be to pick my husband up.

When I pulled up to the museum they were unloading bus load after bus load of children. They were all so excited to be there and it was fun just watching these little ones reactions to seeing the things they were seeing outside. It did bring back the memories and how I used to love going on field trips to things like this.

Once you got into the building they had very few exhibits on the upper level and directed you down the stairs. As you went down the stairs you couldn't help but notice this:

Ancient Toothed Whale

I knew right away I was going to like this place.

I was curious as to what it was.

So after that it was on to the other exhibits. The next one was called stories in stone. I noticed that they children weren't in this area yet. They had been taken to a different area where a docent was speaking to them about all the things they would see while they were there.

I fell in love with this one. I think it is a giant sloth- I thought I had gotten a picture with its label but when I looked at them I couldn't tell what it was so now I'm not sure. When I saw it -- it reminded me so much of star wars and I wondered if Steven Spielburg ever saw this exhibit too?

There were other skeletons there too. The geologist in me loves looking at these ancient skeleton just trying to imagine what these animals must have looked like when they were alive.

West Indian Mantee skeleton, MS Museum of Natural Science

Giant Beaver skeleton, MS Museum of Natural Science

At the Cleveland Natural Science museum they had a Placoderm fish like this too and it had always fascinated me to think someone was able to piece it together and figure out what it looked liked. It was nice to see they had this Placoderm Fish - Dunkleosteus terelli fish skull too.

Placoderm Fish - Dunkleosteus terelli skull @ MS Museum of Natural Science

In this one they did the imagining for you by them attaching the body to the skeletal head.

One of the skulls on exhibit at the MS Museum of Natural Science

They also had some - what I call taxidermy exhibits. These were some animals that are endangered in Mississippi.
The cougar

the red wolf

the eagle

the pelican

and there were others that I didn't get images off.
They also had a very good exhibit of birds. I liked it because sometimes I'm not sure what birds I'm looking at and its nice to see one that is so still and you can get an image of it.
These were in display cases.

and these had a more natural look to them.

Here is the exhibit a little bit closer up.

One of my all time favorite birds is Purple Martins and so I just had to get a picture of one too. Did you know they eat their body weight in bugs every day. They especially like mosquitoes. When they are around they really keep those insects in check.

The state bird of Mississippi is the Northern Mockingbird so since I was in Mississippi I felt I had to get an image of their state bird.

Northern Mocking bird - MS state bird @ MS Museum of Natural Science

One of the things that was nice about this museum was that they also had live exhibits too.
The kids were thrilled with them and that is where I saw them spending most of their time.

This turtle was a big, big hit with them too - and I must admit it was fascinating to watch.

Alligator Snapping Turtle @ the MS Museum of natural science

But I think the all time favorite was this two headed snake. I was so caught off guard seeing these two heads I forgot to look and see what type of snake it actually was.