page_title: University of Nebraska State Museum
section_title: Paleontology of Nebraska
hierarchical_section_title: University of Nebraska State Museum / Exhibits / Paleontology of Nebraska
caption_attribution_description: English: Exhibit
context_page_description: The University of Nebraska State Museum, also known as Morrill Hall, founded in 1871, is a natural history museum featuring Nebraska biodiversity, paleontology, and cultural diversity, located on the University of Nebraska–Lincoln City Campus near the corner of 14th and Vine Streets in Lincoln, Nebraska, United States.
  The museum houses Mueller Planetarium, a hands-on science discovery center, and the Elephant Hall, where visitors can see the world's largest articulated fossil mammoth among the collection of fossil elephants. Also featured are interactive paleontology exhibits, a dinosaur gallery, ancient life and evolution exhibits, wildlife dioramas, gems and minerals, American Indian and African exhibits, and a temporary exhibit gallery featuring rotating displays on diverse topics including photography, quilts and fine arts.
context_section_description: Located on the main floor of the museum, the Paleontology of Nebraska exhibits include the Elephant Hall, Mesozoic Gallery, Fossil Animals, Toren Gallery of Ancient Life. These exhibits display various fossil collections. The museum is known for its vast vertebrate paleontology collection, ranking 5th in the nation. The museum has been gathering its paleontology collections since 1891, when the Director Erwin Barbour began to excavate fossils from Western Nebraska. So far, more than 85,000 vertebrate species have been cataloged. Most of the collections originate from Nebraska. The collections from the Plaeistocene and Cretaceous are from New Mexico and Montana, respectively.
  
  The Elephant Hall is famous for having one of the largest mammoth skeletons in the world. Among them, the museum hosts the largest Columbian mammoth fossil in the world, known as "Archie." It is also the state fossil of Nebraska.  Along with the mammoth skeletons, the Hall displays skeletons and models of elephants of various eras. By comparing the structure of the skeletons and the elephants' teeth, visitors can learn about the evolutionary history of the elephants.
  The Mesozoic Gallery features skeletons and models of organisms that lived during the Mesozoic era. Along with the fossils of the dinosaurs, the Gallery is famous for its Plesiosaur fossil that was excavated in 2004 from Northeast Nebraska, which is known to be one of the longest marine fossil.  The Toren Gallery of Ancient Life includes models of organisms of the Paleozoic era.
  The Fossil Animals section displays ancient and current skeletons of rhinos, horses, and camels. Recent donations to the museum are also shown in this area.
caption: Mesozoic Gallery
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