Natural history museums in Texas

[CityRaptor]

Well, never noticed that in real life the evil cults are always filthy rich?

Fixed that for you.

Of course! It's truth in television.

[Halichoeres]

Just wait around until 2025 when the Dallas-Houston bullet train is supposed to start operating.

[Stuckasaurus (Dino Dad Reviews)]

Just wait around until 2025 when the Dallas-Houston bullet train is supposed to start operating.

I'm crossing my fingers in hopes that it actually happens! It looks like there's a good chance for this one, unlike the one that was supposed to be built in California.

[Stuckasaurus (Dino Dad Reviews)]

Here's the latest entry in my Texas museum series! The "Texas Through Time" museum in Hillsboro operates out of a historic former auto service garage, and so it's among the smallest museum I've ever visited, but they have a good representation of Texas fossils! I first found out about it when paleontologist Jim Kirkland (of Utahraptor Project fame) visited to look at an ankylosaur skeleton they'd excavated in Big Bend, confirming that it is in fact a new species!

https://dinodadreviews.com/2020/08/01/texas-through-time/



They only have a few elements of the ankylosaur prepped and on display so far (image on the right), but they hope to create a full skeletal mount of it sometime in the future!



In addition to their own excavations, they also lend their services to other museums in need of extra field hands and preparators. This is a picture of their prep lab; you can see an open plaster jacket with Triceratops material from Colorado that they are prepping on behalf of the Denver Museum.

[Halichoeres]

Never mind the dinosaurs, check out that sweet gar skull!

[Stuckasaurus (Dino Dad Reviews)]

Here's some pics of my visit to the Heard Museum in McKinney, Texas (immediately north of Dallas)!
This place first caught my attention because the preparators kept bringing that tortoise skeleton along with them to meetings of the Dallas Paleontological Society. It was particularly eye-catching at the time because they supported the half-mounted skeleton with a scaffolding of Tinker Toys!  I recommend visiting in the fall if you want to see the Billings models they host annually on their outdoor nature trails.

You can read my full review on my blog if you want: https://dinodadreviews.com/2020/10/16/heard-natural-science-museum/







And of course I have to give them credit for offering Safari Ltd. models in their gift shop! 

[Halichoeres]

Didn't know McKinney had a museum, or that it was called the Heard Museum. Phoenix has a Heard Museum, too, but it's a museum of Native art. I wonder if they're named after the same rich people.

[Stuckasaurus (Dino Dad Reviews)]

Yet another Texas museum! This time it's the Mayborn Museum, on the campus of Baylor University in Waco. This place is only about a 20 minute drive from Waco Mammoth National Monument, and is fact is the designated repository for any fossils excavated from there. I'll review the Mammoth Site another time, but the Mayborn does have an interesting "preview" of sorts! Also, @dinotoyforum might be interested in the local pliosaur on display there! The pic below has a model suspended from the ceiling, and fossil specimens in two blocks on the left and right from the perspective shown here. I'm not sure if both specimens are the same species though. The better preserved specimen visible in this picture seemed more like a polycotylid, so I'm guessing the specimen off screen on the left was the prototype for the model seen here.
Full review here:
https://dinodadreviews.com/2021/02/14/mayborn-museum/

[Stuckasaurus (Dino Dad Reviews)]

I also couldn't help making this Jurassic World comparison with the Mayborn's Protostega. 
Lockwood Manor, but make it turtle.
https://dinodadreviews.com/2021/02/14/mayborn-museum/

[Halichoeres]

Protostega wore it better.

[Stuckasaurus (Dino Dad Reviews)]

Here's an interesting one! This is the Dinosaur Science Museum at Southwestern Adventist University in Keene, a little ways south of Dallas. If you don't know, the Adventists are the Protestant denomination most directly responsible for the modern Young Earth Creationist movement, so when I first heard about this place, I'm sure it's no surprise that I expected a cheaper knockoff of the ICR creation museum I discussed earlier in this thread.




Much to my pleasant surprise, however, it turns out they do actual paleontological science here! They have really in-depth explanations on the process of excavation and preparation, with multiple windows allowing visitors to view their prep lab & backstage collections. They've also conducted extensive excavations of Late Cretaceous deposits in Montana.



There is a commemorative plaque that mentions something about practicing "Biblical science", and the Asilisaurus display nearby mentions how it surprised "evolutionary scientists", but those were literally the only references I could find in the entire museum that maybe suggest a hidden creationist agenda, though my suspicion is that those signs were more to throw a bone to conservative donors so they would let the paleontologists do their thing. Even if they are secretly creationist, they absolutely do still conduct more "real science" here than anything Ken Ham has ever put out, so that's a point in their favor. For what it's worth, one of the technicians at the nearby Texas Through Time museum (which I also discussed previously in this thread) commented on my Instagram post with high praise for this museum, so make of that what you will.

https://dinodadreviews.com/2022/09/29/swau-dinosaur-science-museum/

[Stuckasaurus (Dino Dad Reviews)]

I'm finally getting around to reviewing what I'm calling the "Big Two" museums in the DFW area, starting with the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History. As a general science museum, the fossil hall doesn't occupy as much space as I would like, but it's interesting nonetheless. I'll just share some pictures here; you can read my review in the link above if you're interested in more of the context.

[marisaura]

a few pics from the witte museum in san antonio, which i visited last week!

acrocanthosaurus


quetzalcoatlus


tyrannosaurus


lythronax and dilong from the temporary tyrannosauroidea exhibit


cryolophosaurus from the temporary antarctic dinosaur exhibit


my gf and i befriending the temnospondyl amphibian


also of interest to the forum: the gift shop sells safari albeit a fairly limited range, and i picked up the cryolophosaurus and dilophosaurus there!

[Halichoeres]

Hey, I remember that Antarctosuchus from when that exhibit was in Chicago! Nice to see an old friend.