Extreme Mammals Exhibit Opens Nov. 23 at the Bullock

NOVEMBER 19, 2013 (AUSTIN, TX) – Walk under a 15-ft. tall re-creation of the largest land mammal ever recorded, touch a fossil mammoth tooth and see what the Arctic looked like when it was warm and swampy in the new exhibit, Extreme Mammals: The Biggest, Smallest and Most Amazing Mammals of All Time, opening at the Bullock Texas State History Museum on November 23, 2013.

It is the first time the Bullock Museum has hosted a natural history exhibit, and it is the largest exhibit in the institution's history. Opening day activities are planned for November 23, 2013 to celebrate the new exhibit that examines the 200-million-year history of fossil and living mammals.

Don't miss your chance to be among the first people to have an extreme experience at the museum by attending Opening Day on Saturday, Nov. 23, 2013. The museum is open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., but family activities will take place from noon to 3 p.m. and are free with admission. Take a walk on the wild side – make animal art, explore the diversity of Texas mammals, and try your hand at mammal trivia during this special event.

In this exhibit, visitors can experience the most astonishing mammals to roam the Earth – some with tongues weighing four tons, and others as small as a bumblebee. Creatures with gigantic claws,massive fangs and strange snouts. It explores the adaptations that have allowed mammals to diversify and adapt to beat the extinction odds.

The largest land mammal living today is the African elephant, but the largest land mammal ever recorded is Indricotherium, which weighed as much as four elephants. Extreme Mammals features as its centerpiece, a 15-foot re-creation of this amazing herbivore that lived in the forests of central Asia between 34 and 23 million years ago.

The rodent-like Batodonaides is the smallest mammal known in the fossil record. The exhibit features a re-creation of this astounding mammal that could fit on the end of a pencil and weighed less than a dollar bill.

Also included in the exhibit are taxidermy specimens – from the egg-laying platypus, to the recently extinct Tasmanian wolf – as well as fleshed-out models of spectacular extinct forms such as Ambulocetus, a "walking whale," and an entire skeleton of the giant hoofed plant-eater Uintatherium. Living and extinct Texas mammals that are part of the Story of Texas will be featured, and visitors can see climate change unfold as they explore the Ellesmere Island diorama, which shows the North Pole region about 50 million years ago when it was tropical.

Extreme Mammals at the Bullock Museum offers family fun, dynamic media displays, animated computer interactives, hands-on activities and touchable fossils. Children may 'try on' other mammals' teeth, including those of the capybara, hippo or the extinct Smilodon. They can crawl through a massive glyptodont shell, which makes a great family photo.

To enhance the visitor experience, the museum will be showing the acclaimed IMAX film, Titans of the Ice Age 3D, which transports you to the frozen landscapes of North America, Europe and Asia 10,000 years before modern civilization. This film is a portal to the Pleistocene ice age, bringing to life the era's unique prehistoric animals and underscoring many of the Extreme Mammals exhibit themes.

Extreme Mammals is organized by the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in collaboration with the California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco; Cleveland Museum of Natural History; and the Canadian Museum of Nature, Ottawa, Canada. The exhibit will be on display at the Bullock Museum through March 23, 2014.

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​​The Bullock Texas State History Museum, a division of the State Preservation Board and an accredited institution of the American Alliance of Museums, creates experiences that educate, engage, and encourage a deeper understanding of Texas. With dynamic, award-winning exhibitions that illuminate Texas history, people, and culture, educational programming for all ages, and an IMAX® theater with a screen the size of Texas, the Museum collaborates with more than 700 museums, libraries, archives, organizations, and individuals across the world to bring the Story of Texas to life. For more information, visit www.TheStoryofTexas.com or call (866)369-7108.