Super Croc!

The little museum in our town, the Stauth Museum right across the street, just got a VERY BIG exhibit! SuperCroc!!!

SuperCroc, or Sarchosuchus (that's such a fun word to say) was discovered in 2000 in the Sahara Desert in Niger. Only about 50% of the original skeleton was found but by studying living crocodiles scientists were able to recreate the total skeleton.

Super Croc was 40 feet long, as long as a school bus! That's twice as long as the largest living crocodile on record. The skull itself was 6' long! Amazing!

Yahoo wouldn't even be an appetizer for this dude. In fact scientists believe that this prehistoric crocodile would wait submerged at the waters edge and catch dinosaurs coming to drink. Then eat em'! A crocodile that ate dinosaurs. Yip and Yap were amazed by that little tidbit of information...and so was I.

I love this photo of the scientists who made the discovery lying down in the desert behind the skull to recreate the length, or what they guessed, the croc would have been.

That is one mighty long, strong tail and just check out the size of those teeth.

Of course there is more to the exhibit than just the giant skeleton. There's models of what scientists believe SuperCroc's eggs and babies would have looked like. There are side by side comparisons of SuperCroc's bones to modern crocodile and alligator bones. There is a National Geographic video documenting some of the work scientists did on SuperCroc. There is audio of modern reptiles sounds and those of what scientists believe SuperCroc would have sounded like.

Though it's small, all around it is an absolutely amazing exhibit for such a small town of 900 people to have the chance to host. If you are in the area it would be well worth your time to detour to check it out. The exhibit will be up til March and I have a feeling the boys and I will be checking it out often...we've already been there 3 times!

Yep, we are pretty blessed to have such an amazing museum for our neighbor.

Marker Monday - The Stauth Memorial Museum

The coolest thing about living in Montezuma, Kansas is the Stauth Memorial Museum.

 A museum only a block away from our house and admission is FREE. How cool is that??

The Stauths, Claude and Donnie, were residents of Montezuma. Claude was a travel agent and Donnie was a photographer. Throughout their lives they traveled all over the world many times over. As with any traveler, they returned home with souveneirs. After Claude's death, Donnie was convinced their souveneirs should belong in a museum. And so the Stauth Memorial Museum was built!

As you walk in the museum you are greeted by a world map highlighting some of the Stauths travels complete with photographs of themselves in different locations.

Yap loves checking out this display. A case full of coins from around the world that rotates around by the push of a button.

Pottery...

 and Musical Instruments. Yip keeps trying to convince the museum guides that he should be able to take home the "fiddle" on the left.  

I love these rugs! Every time we visit, every couple of weeks, I have the urge to roll em' up, stuff em' in the diaper bag and take em' home with me!

And there are pull out drawers of all sorts of smaller trinkets to rediscover.

An alpaca rug...Yip wants me to make one like this...uummm...we'll see son.

The Stauth's souveneirs from their travels is only a small part of the museum. There is also a room full of animal mounts, donated by friends of the Stauth's, that contain moose heads, polar bear hides and a wolverine pelt (Yip's favorite).  There is a small gallery of western sculpture that showcases a few small works by Frederick Remington. There is also a space for traveling exhibits which currently is exhibiting textiles (quilts, knitting, sewing, etc.) from the local area. But this past year the Stauth Museum exhibited photos by a National Geographic photographer Frans Lanting, working models of Leonardo Da Vinci's inventions and a historical look of Abraham Lincoln in Kansas. In December there will be an exhibit about the Science of SuperCroc! I'm really looking forward to that one!

What an amazing little gem hidden in a sleepy little town on the Kansas Prairie! If you are ever in our part of the world, the Stauth Museum would well be worth the time and effort to visit!