page_title: Arizona Museum of Natural History
section_title: Exhibitions
hierarchical_section_title: Arizona Museum of Natural History / Exhibitions
caption_attribution_description: English: The skeleton of a Pterosaurs on display in the Arizona Museum of Natural History in Mesa Arizona.
context_page_description: The Arizona Museum of Natural History is the only natural history museum in the greater Phoenix area and is located in Mesa, Arizona. It exhibits the natural and cultural history of the Southwestern United States.
context_section_description: The Museum's exhibitions include a three-story indoor waterfall on Dinosaur Mountain, Dinosaur Hall, a real territorial jail, and a recreation of the Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine. The Southwest Gallery consists of a native peoples’ gallery, with exhibits about Paleoindian big game hunters and gatherers, the first inhabitants of North America, and the Desert Cultures that developed later. It also holds a recreation of a Hohokam village, with pithouses and above-ground structures, outfitted with real artifacts as they might have been from about A.D. 600-1450. Another exhibit is the Ancient Cultures of Mexico. The Origins gallery  is designed as a voyage through the timeline of the cosmos and discusses major events in the history of planet Earth.
  Among the exhibitions is a hands-on Exploration Station and the Paleo Dig Pit.
  Three changing exhibition galleries offer a variety of subjects. The evolution of flight—was it from the ground-up or from the tree down?  AzMNH's exhibition, "Rulers of the Prehistoric Skies," helped to answer that question. The exhibit has since been removed, but the pterosaurs are still visible throughout the museum.
  At no other time in the history of life on Earth were there animals like the pterosaurs, those flying creatures who truly did rule the sky. They were the first vertebrates to achieve flight, and they did it in a way that was all their own. In addition to very distinctly shaped, thin, hollow bones, pterosaurs had membranous wings which were probably flexible and able to change shape during flight.  The actual mechanical details are not completely understood by paleontologists, thus giving rise to multiple opinions.
  The main goal of the exhibit was to have visitors understand the amazing diversity among Pterosaurs. Exhibit volunteers helped to achieve this goal by building everything from “rock blocks” and puzzles, to actual models of the fliers themselves. Don Puffer created a 4-foot mechanical Dsungaripterous pterosaur also known as “Clam Digger” that demonstrated the opening and closing of its wings. Ed Mack's sculpture Pteranodon sternbergi is a stunning life-size model that should amaze the museum audience and now hangs over Dinosaur Mountain.
  "Rulers of the Prehistoric Skies" was part of a Mesa Arts and Culture First Flight initiative and focused on flying reptiles; however the exhibit also explored the evolution of flight from insects, the true first flyers, to birds and bats.
  The "Rulers of the Prehistoric Skies" exhibit opened on February 4, 2012, and ran for approximately four years due to its popularity.
  Another of the changing exhibits was "The Primal Desert Next Door: Land of Black Volcanoes and White Sands," which opened February 26, 2011 and closed in January 2013. Much of the Sonoran Desert lies south of the Arizona border in Mexico. This vast expanse and its diverse wildlife is the focus of this exhibition, which included wall murals depicting the vast contrasting dark “moon-scape” volcanic fields and bright seas of sand dunes. Visitors were able to learn about the geology, flora, and fauna of this region though photographs and interactive components. The exhibition was based on the book Land of Black Volcanoes and White Sands, The Pinacate and Gran Desierto De Altar Biosphere Reserve, by Larry Marshall and Clark Blake.  Interactive features included a dune machine, which replicated the phenomena of sand dunes, a hands-on basin and range topography display, and a mock lava tube, which children could climb through. This exhibition has since been replaced. For all current and future exhibitions, please visit http://www.azmnh.org
  AzMNH exhibitions are made possible, in large part, by private donations to the Arizona Museum of Natural History Foundation, the Museum's 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.
  Additionally, the museum maintains the Sirrine House, a Queen Anne style home built in Mesa in 1896. The museum claims that the home is the only fully restored Victorian-era home museum.  The Sirrine House is currently  open only for special events.
caption: The skeleton of a Pterosaurs on display in the museum.
exif: {}