State Museum of Pennsylvania

[Pachyrhinosaurus]

This week I made it up to the State Museum of PA to see their paleontology exhibits. The fossil halls aren't huge, and most of it is dioramas, but they have a few very nice displays.

This mastodon is in a side room off the lobby. According to the signage, it was originally in the upstairs gallery but moved to make room for the mastodon skeleton when it was re-mounted.


This dunkleosteus cast is accompanied by a real fossil fragment.

There was an immersive, walk-through replica of a Carboniferous coal forest, complete with sound effects.








This is the original koskinodon skull that the one at the North Museum is cast from:

Interestingly, it's next to a cast of the North Museum's sphodrosaurus skeleton:

Next, two large triassic dioramas, with a Redondasaurus skeleton.




And a familiar face, CM 11338:

The centerpiece of the SMP's collection is the Marshall Creek Mastodon:


The mastodon was collected in 1968 but it was re-mounted more recently. It's the most complete mastodon from Pennsylvania at 90%.

[Lanthanotus]

Woah, really like that one, especially the Carboniferous Forest. Have been to some museum/park lately which also displayed a similar forest (click) but the animal reconstructions in PA seem to be quite better. What's that iguana/dimetrodon thingy supposed to be?

[Pachyrhinosaurus]

Woah, really like that one, especially the Carboniferous Forest. Have been to some museum/park lately which also displayed a similar forest (click) but the animal reconstructions in PA seem to be quite better. What's that iguana/dimetrodon thingy supposed to be?

I don't remember seeing that one before, but it looks very realistic as well.

According to the signage, it's supposed to be Ianthasaurus hardestii. I'm not sure why they went with (what appears to be) a cast of an iguana for an edaphosaurid.

[Halichoeres]

That Coelophysis looks a little like the Safari version! That's a cool forest exhibit, I'll have to stop by there sometime. Thanks for the photos!