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Art Wed Mar 03 2010
Mammoths and Mastodons: Titans of the Ice Age
If you don't know the difference between a mammoth and a mastodon, this exhibition is for you. If you think it's preposterous that anyone wouldn't know the difference between a mammoth and a mastodon, well it's for you, too.
The Field Museum's newest exhibition, Mammoths and Mastodons: Titans of the Ice Age, opens this Friday and is expected to be pretty popular. The museum has gone all out for this one, creating hands-on life-sized dioramas and virtual experiences for visitors to explore and imagine themselves as cavemen.
The star of this exhibition is a 40,000 year old, intact baby mammoth specimen named Lyuba that a Siberian reindeer herder and two of his sons discovered in 2007. Lyuba is, by far, the best-preserved specimen of her kind. This exhibition marks the first display of the baby mammoth in the United States, and includes not only Lyuba's preserved body, but CT scans and other scientific evidence that confirms existing theories about her species and new insights.
This exhibition will answer all of your mammoth-related questions, like how they balanced their heavy tusks, how much a mammoth ate in a day, and how elephants communicate. Those of you who lament the invention of such modern day luxuries as toothbrushes and t-shirts, as well as the demise of giant wooly tusked creatures, are encouraged to visit this exhibition and pretend like none of that nonsense ever happened.
Mammoths and Mastodons will be on display through September 6. Visit the Field Museum's website for tickets and more information.