Member's Night at the Field Museum

We love the Field Museum. And it was the 60th Members Night. Its like a big science fair for much of the research going on at the museum. I talked to a bunch of graduate students who were doing their thesis work at the museum. You get access to the working part of the museum. This time we went into an area where we had never been before. Two floors of basements. The storage areas for the parts of the collection that are not on display. You can also get free passes to the temporary exhibits. We stopped in front of Sue for a second as were entered the museum.



Bart and Alex checking out some preserved oddities in the Mammals Research room.



Here is a fish that lives at great depths in the ocean. This one is a Fangtooth or Viperfish. It has the biggest teeth relative to headsize for any fish. Luckily they are tiny.



Diane with one of a bunch of large archeological artifacts in the storage area.



One of the traveling exhibits was called Whales. Prepared by New Zealand, it showed Whale evolution and the history of whaling and whale interaction with humans in the South Pacific.



They had a model of a whale heart. It was big and kids could crawl through the vessels and chambers. Alex loved it!




They had two complete adult sperm whale skeletons. Quite a sight. The male was 58 feet long.



They also had an exhibit called horses. It was pretty neat but after walking through Whales it seemed less grand. I guess I have seen many horses and ridden a few.



Bart and Alex pretend to be in a rodeo.



Time flew by and it was closing time before we got to see all we wanted. I saw these elephants when I was a kid. Its always great to see them again. Hopefully we can get back soon.