Mammoth: Visitors to "Mammoths and Mastodons: Titans of the Ice Age" can see fossils and life-size replicas of these ancient beasts. (Photo courtesy of the Anchorage Museum)With the cold temperatures we’ve been experiencing in Anchorage this week, it seems like a great time to get tickets for the Anchorage Museum's next big exhibit – “Mammoths and Mastodons.”
The exhibit opens in early March, but the tickets went on sale this week. Below is a press release from the museum.
Get 'em while they’re hot.
-- Steve
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Tickets go on sale today for “Mammoths and Mastodons: Titans of the Ice Age,” on view at the Anchorage Museum March 4 through Oct. 9, 2011. This exhibition, developed by The Field Museum in Chicago, brings these animals to life by exploring their interactions with one another and with ancient humans.
For millions of years mammoths and mastodons roamed the Earth, great beasts weighing as much as 8 tons and bearing tusks up to 16 feet long. They were wonderfully successful creatures of the Ice Age who served as food and artistic inspiration for ancient peoples. But despite their size and ability to adapt to different habitats, these early cousins of the elephant eventually went extinct – leaving behind an abundant fossil record.
The “Mammoths and Mastodons” exhibition helps adults and children delve deep into the Ice Age world by re-creating it via walk-through dioramas, artifacts, and hands-on activities, such as a virtual cave painting game.
Mammoths2: "Mammoths and Mastodons: Titans of the Ice Age" includes several life-size re-creations of other Ice Age animals. This exhibition photograph features both the short-faced bear and the saber-tooth cat in the background. (Photo courtesy of the Anchorage Museum)
The exhibition features life-size, fleshed-out Ice Age creatures, as well as skeletons, skulls and tusks. Rare and evocative objects on display include some of the oldest art in existence and fossils of mammoth relatives, such as dwarf mammoths. The exhibition also details the scientific methods used to study beasts from the past and their surviving relatives: modern-day elephants.
One exhibition highlight is a 40,000-year-old, intact baby mammoth specimen named Lyuba (pronounced Lee-OO-bah) discovered in 2007. Lyuba is, by far, the best-preserved specimen of her kind – complete with skin, eyes, taste buds and even some hair. She has helped scientists support many theories about mammoth behavior.
The Anchorage Museum will emphasize Alaska’s Ice Age through programs such as science cafes, lectures and a family field trip to a local fossil site.
Tickets are $24 adult, $21 senior/student/military, $17 ages 3 to 12 and free ages 2 and younger. Prices include museum general admission. Purchase tickets online at www.anchoragemuseum.org.
