Looking for an easy way to get your kids interested in science? Tell them about the mammoth remains that were found right here in southeast Michigan last year – and then take them to go see the bones firsthand.
The Bristle Mammoth Exhibit, displaying the mammoth bones found near Chelsea, Michigan last fall, is opening Saturday, Nov. 5, 2016 at the University of Michigan Museum of Natural History. It will be on display there and open to the public through Jan. 15, 2018.
The Bristle Mammoth is named after James and Melody Bristle, who found the wooly mammoth remains while digging on their soybean farm in 2015 and donated them to U-M.
“He found bones, big bones,” Dr. Daniel Fisher, director of the Museum of Paleontology at the University of Michigan, told Big Ten Network earlier this year. “These were not cow or horse, and immediately he and his friends went online, began to realize that they probably had a mastodon or a mammoth, and called the university.”
Visitors to the new exhibit will get to “touch one of the Bristle Mammoth’s bones, see some of the evidence for human activity at this site (such as the removal of edible tissues from parts of the carcass), and explore how the Bristle Mammoth’s bones, teeth and tusks will help scientists understand how these animals lived and why they went extinct,” the U-M Museum of Natural History shares on its website.
Admission to the museum is free (suggested donation is $6 per person). Hours are 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Saturday and noon-5 p.m. Sunday. The museum is closed Nov. 24, Dec. 24-26 and Dec. 31, 2016.
A variety of Bristle Mammoth events are also being planned, including special exhibit opening events Nov. 4-6, 2016 and a Scientist Spotlight Nov. 6 – all free and open to the public.
The U-M Museum of Natural History is currently located in the Ruthven Museums Building at 1109 Geddes Avenue in Ann Arbor. The museum is moving to the U-M Biological Science Building in 2019, where the Bristle Mammoth Exhibit will follow.
For more information, call 734-764-0478 or visit the museum’s website. You can also check out the Metro Parent listing for the Bristle Mammoth Exhibit at U-M Museum of Natural History.
For other fun and educational events for families in the Ann Arbor or metro Detroit area, visit the Metro Parent Calendar.
