The Texas Memorial Museum in Austin was built for the 1936 Texas Centennial, and for many years housed a mix of historical, anthropological, paleontological and nature-related exhibits, but after the nearby Bob Bullock Texas History Museum was opened, those in charge of the Texas Memorial Museum decided to shift the museum's focus strictly to natural history and paleontology. Today it's a wonderland for fans of animals and dinosaurs.
Instructions
1. Start your tour at the east entrance of the museum at 2400 Trinity Street. This is a lofty Art Deco building with a statue of a saber-toothed cat out front. From the foyer you'll enter the two-story Great Hall and notice the skeleton of the Texas Pterosaur--a flying dinosaur--swooping down at you, as it were. Off to the left is the security desk, where you can pick up audio guide units. Work your way clockwise around the room and you'll see a beautiful collection of beetles, a variety of minerals and gems--including a 250-lb. amethyst quartz geode--fossils and a display of rudists, which are a type of prehistoric bivalve mollusk.
2. Turn north and go up the steps into the extensive gift shop, which stocks books, toys, games, maps, posters, T-shirts, jewelry and stuffed animals, though you may want to wait until you've finished visiting all the floors before you buy anything. The elevator and the stairs are on the northeast corner, just beyond the gift shop and off a special exhibition gallery. Take note in the elevator of the bronze Art Deco grille work.
3. Go up to the fourth floor--the Hall of Biodiversity. Make a hard right and work your way clockwise. You'll see displays of life in a cave, fishes of the Gulf of Mexico and various specimens of Texas wildlife, including rather impressive skeletons of a rattlesnake and rat snake. On the south side of this passage go into the Explore Evolution room. this currently houses an interactive exhibition on AIDS, viruses and diatoms, displays on whales, finch diversity, bird beak measurement, DNA, chimps, flies and the co-evolution of farming ants, a fungus crop, crop pests and bacteria. A presentation theater is located just to the south of this room.
4. Head northeast and take the elevator down to the third floor, the Hall of Texas Wildlife. Turn right and you'll see a display on all the natural regions of Texas, with mounted specimens of each region's wildlife, including several peccaries, a coyote, black bear, skunk, gray fox, opossum, a rather magnificent Rio Grande Turkey, white-tailed and mule deer and several American bison. Go back into the north-south corridor which is lined with vitrines of Texas wildlife specimens. To the left is the Fishes of Texas room. It's decorated in an aquatic motif, with a wrecked boat in the center of the room and the sounds of the ocean piped in.
5. Walk north back to the elevator and go down to the first floor and the Hall of Geology and Paleontology, which is easily the most popular part of the museum. In the room to the right, work your way around counter-clockwise. Here there are displays on "deep time," meteorites, tektites, Paleozoic fish, big prehistoric sea urchins and other fossils. Step down into the main dinosaur room and work your way around clockwise, past the South Permian, Triassic, Cretaceous and Tertiary eras. Highlights here include an American "Zebra," a Dimetrodon or "Sailback" and Buettneria Perfecta--an amphibian with huge jaws.
6. Return to the elevator, taking note of the mock-up of the first floor lay-out on the wall, make your purchases at the gift shop, then exit on the east side of the building. But you still have more to see. A little pavilion off to the northeast houses the Glen Rose Dinosaur Tracks, while between that and the main building is an outdoor classroom with Native American grinding stones and seats made to look like dinosaur vertebrae. Wander around to the west side of the building for a look at its impressive facade, then follow the walkway down the hill to see "Mustangs," a dynamics sculpture by Alec Phimister Proctor.
