New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science

[Stuckasaurus (Dino Dad Reviews)]

A few years ago, I was on a cross country trip that happened to take me through Albuquerque, New Mexico. I wasn't in any particular rush, but still just wanted to get to my destination, and didn't take much time to sightsee. Imagine my dismay then when I found out later that I had apparently missed a pretty top-notch museum! I knew I was likely to make a similar trip some time in the future, so I swore I would take the time to visit next time I passed through.

Fast forward a few years, and sure enough, earlier this year I had occasion to make the same trip again, so of course I jumped at the chance to visit! I can now say that this is probably one of my favorite natural history museums I've ever visited! (If you're curious what my standard is, I'd say it's better than the Dallas, Waco, and San Diego museums, and about on the same level as both the LA natural history museum and the La Brea Tar Pits. I haven't visited anything on the east coast yet, sadly.) I've uploaded some pictures I'll post here; this batch of images by no means captures the full diversity of the museum though! I have a few more pics I still need to upload, which I will post here as soon as I have. Enjoy!

Out front there's sculptures of "Alberta" the Albertosaurus, and "Spike" the Pentaceratops sculpted by Dave Thomas. Both are meant to represent specimens found in New Mexico, though of course we now know these days that the presumed albertosaur remains actually belong to Bistahieversor, the "Bisti Beast". You can see the holotype of the Bisti Beast inside, though like a chump I completely forgot to snap a pic. I guess I was too absorbed in the moment!




Speaking of New Mexican dinosaurs, you could hardly get away without representing the most famous denizens, Coelophysis of Ghost Ranch mass grave fame! I think this sculpture (located near the admission desk) must also be by Dave Thomas, though I couldn't find any credit anywhere. There's also a nice, classic chunk of Ghost Ranch rock full of the critters further inside the museum.



Good old Stan greets you upon entry into the main atrium. The pose is a little odd; it looks like he's waking up from a nap! Though it does put his skull at a nice eye level for the kids!


The main fossil exhibits are organized in a "walk through time" format, starting up on the second floor. Each "leg" of the journey is numbered to ensure that patrons know which order they're supposed to go in, should they care to. If I remember rightly, the exhibit is divided into 5 sections, starting with the Precambrian/Paleozoic, then the Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous, and finally the Cenezoic. The big centerpiece of the Triassic was this lovely mount of a phytosaur vs a dicynodont (or, as I explained to my dad, "Not-a-croc vs Not-a-pig").


I really liked this cabinet full of phytosaurs; this was perhaps my favorite display in this section of the tour. Comparative anatomy for the win!!!


Moving on, we next come upon the spacious Jurassic gallery. The centerpieces here are these awe-inspiring mounts of those Jurassic titans, Saurophaganax and the mighty "Seismosaurus"! The museum signage doesn't want to admit that it's a species of Diplodocus now, and I suppose I can't blame them. That's a good name the ICZN is asking us to give up. You can also just see a Stegosaur mount on the right, a Eudimorphodon model above, and what's that behind?!? I do believe it's an Ely Kish mural! And they gave here very explicit credit, with an entire info plaque dedicated to her and the mural. I'll have better pics of the mural, the pterosaur, and the Stegosaurus when I upload my second batch. One thing I really liked about this gallery was that they laid casts of the holotype material on the ground at the feet of their reconstructed counterparts, giving you some idea of the amount of reconstructing they actually had to do!


Here's a Brachiosaurus forelimb, with some doofus next to it for scale.


The next gallery featured a Cretaceous seashore: a lushly forested diorama on one side had several dinosaurs (both skeletons and models) hiding in the shrubs. Opposite the diorama, one enters the "ocean" and sees a mosasaur, a hesperornith, and various other prehistoric sea life such as ammonites. There was also some tanks full of live tidepool animals at waist level covered with nets here too: apparently this is a touch-and-feel opportunity for field trips.



After an obligatory End of the Dinosaurs scene (too poorly lit to photograph), one walks past the museum's rather paltry display of Cenezoic mammals. I appreciated that they placed a Mastodon skull right next to the Mammoth skeleton. It made it easy to examine the differences between the two. A Smilodon menaced the poor pachyderms from a cliff above. There were a few other Cenezoic displays, most notably a Gastornis skeleton and a rather lovely mural depicting the evolutionary sequence of horses, both of which I somehow forgot to photograph, which I can't stop kicking myself over.



That's all for now. I'll try to get the rest of my photos up ASAP!

[Stuckasaurus (Dino Dad Reviews)]

Oh, and perhaps most importantly for this group, this place had the single best-stocked gift shop I've ever seen in my life! Nearly the full range of both Safari and Papo on the shelves, with really quality books and other such things besides. You can actually buy peer-reviewed technical volumes right off the shelves, too! No half-assed souvenirs for THIS institution! The gift shop honestly impressed almost as much as the exhibits themselves. I think it speaks to a certain commitment on the part of the museum staff to actually try to get their patrons to learn, rather than simply appealing to the lowest common awesomebro denominator.

[Flaffy]

I must visit this place someday... So, so many places to visit.
Taiwan's natural science museum, Carnegie Museum, Smithsonian museum... (aarrrggghhh)
If I remember correctly, the Natural History Museum's gift shops wasn't really stacked with actual dinosaur figures, which was really disappointing when I got there a few years back.
Does this museum have any exclusives? Museums are usually crazy with their own exclusive figures.

[Pachyrhinosaurus]

Very interesting displays. Thanks for sharing!

[Jose S.M.]

Nice exposition! Thanks for the photos,  I wish I can visit bigger museums someday

[Tyrannosauron]

Love that museum! I got to visit a couple of times before my in-laws moved out of town.

If you don't mind my adding one more to the photo collection:

[Stuckasaurus (Dino Dad Reviews)]

Thank you Tyrannosauron! I was very sad not to have a pic of the Bisti Beast. You wouldn't happen to have any pics of the Gastornis would you? Or the murals in the Cenezoic section?

Does this museum have any exclusives? Museums are usually crazy with their own exclusive figures.

They had some exclusives books, mostly technical volumes published by the museum. I didn't notice any exclusive figures; actually, I don't think I've ever been to a museum that had exclusive figures before. Maybe exclusive plush toys... But like I said, just about any Papo or Safari model you could want (that's still in production) was on the shelves! It was heaven.

[DinoLord]

Lovely sauropods. There need to be more Brachiosaurus mounts out in the world.

Doesn't surprise me that they didn't have exclusive figures. The only museum-exclusive figures that come to mind are the NHM in London and the Field Museum in Chicago.

[Tyrannosauron]

Thank you Tyrannosauron! I was very sad not to have a pic of the Bisti Beast. You wouldn't happen to have any pics of the Gastornis would you? Or the murals in the Cenezoic section?

I do have one pic of the Gastornis, although the angle makes it look like it's using a cane.


Unfortunately, I can't find anything the Cenozoic displays. Sorry!

[Stuckasaurus (Dino Dad Reviews)]

LOL, somebody should photoshop a tiny tophat on it. Thanks for posting!

[Halichoeres]

Lovely sauropods. There need to be more Brachiosaurus mounts out in the world.

Doesn't surprise me that they didn't have exclusive figures. The only museum-exclusive figures that come to mind are the NHM in London and the Field Museum in Chicago.

ROM springs to mind, and a couple of Japanese museums.

LOL, somebody should photoshop a tiny tophat on it. Thanks for posting!

And a monocle!

[RaptorRex]

Really nice pictures, man.

I remember going to this museum more than a decade ago. It's been awhile, but I definitely remember the Saurophaganax and Seismosaurus mount, which was probably my favorite part of the museum. The cast of Stan I think is a more recent addition, because I don't really recall seeing any T. rex mounts when I went.

One question I have is did you see a a diorama with a Maiasaura sculpture in it? That was one of the displays I fondly remember as well.

[Stuckasaurus (Dino Dad Reviews)]

Really nice pictures, man.

I remember going to this museum more than a decade ago. It's been awhile, but I definitely remember the Saurophaganax and Seismosaurus mount, which was probably my favorite part of the museum. The cast of Stan I think is a more recent addition, because I don't really recall seeing any T. rex mounts when I went.

One question I have is did you see a a diorama with a Maiasaura sculpture in it? That was one of the displays I fondly remember as well.

Was it in the prehistoric forest display? There was a hadrosaur family there; I haven't got around to posting the pics yet.

[ProSauropod]

I was there early 90's - visiting girlfriend's parents.  It was impressive then (although I was raised on the NY MNH); especially the dioramas.  But high-light was getting to do some prep work on a Seismosaurus (at the time) cast; they took me back in the lab where it was being milled out with what amounted to dentist drills.  30 minutes of that was pretty stressful; I didn't know if I was grinding bone or cast material 

[Stuckasaurus (Dino Dad Reviews)]

Finally got around to uploading some more pictures. Here's some displays from the atrium featuring a prehistoric forest on the edge of the Western Interior Seaway:




A Pentaceratops skull and a hadrosaur family. RaptorRex, this isn't the "Maiasaura" display you were thinking of, right? To my eye, the mother looks like a lambeosaurine with an underdeveloped crest.



A theropod scratching at a burrow. The cool thing is, you can walk underneath the rocks, look up through the other side...



... and see a little mammal scurrying towards you out of harm's way! The contrast is pretty terrible in this last picture, but you can still see the theropod's head outside the burrow from this angle.

[RaptorRex]

A Pentaceratops skull and a hadrosaur family. RaptorRex, this isn't the "Maiasaura" display you were thinking of, right? To my eye, the mother looks like a lambeosaurine with an underdeveloped crest.

There it is! It always stuck out to me due to it being so lifelike. Now that I've seen pictures of it, I'd guess and say it and the theropod were done by the late Stephan Czerkas.

In my opinion, this museum's one of the best in the Southwest when it comes to Paleontology. Again, thanks for sharing the pictures!

[SpartanSquat]

That hadrosaur is a Parasaurolophus made by the great Stephen Czerkas

[Stuckasaurus (Dino Dad Reviews)]

That hadrosaur is a Parasaurolophus made by the great Stephen Czerkas

So it IS meant to be a Parasaurolophus! I suspected as much, but I didn't want to say anything too definitive due to the undeveloped crest. There was also a Parasaurolophus vocalization simulator nearby that model.

[Stuckasaurus (Dino Dad Reviews)]

Here's a closer shot of the Ely Kish mural. These dinosaurs perhaps don't look quite so horribly shrink-wrapped as her usual product, though the sauropods have sorta weird heads. Not sure what's going on with that floppy hadrosaur.



This was what I was most impressed with however. Since museums have been rather bad offenders lately not only in failing to support quality paleoartists, but even occasionally in plagiarizing them, I was amazed to see that this museum got it right several decades ago and actually gave Ely Kish star billing on the museum signage! It's rare to see any credit given to artists by museums at all, let alone an entire informational plaque.

[Neosodon]

I don't think there were any hadrosaurs during the Jurassic so I'd guess its a Camptosaurus. I zoomed in as far as I could and it looked like it was falling on a mosasaur while being attacked by some therapod. Old paintings don't really make a lot of sense to me.