Austin, TX

Texas Memorial Museum in Austin

Address: 2400 Trinity St., Austin, TX 78705 - MAP
Phone: (512) 471-1604
Web: www.utexas.edu

The Texas Memorial Museum is a world-class, natural-science museum housed in the Texas Natural Science Center at UT-Austin.

Originally opened in 1939, the museum is home to breath-taking specimens of dinosaur bones and skeletons, a working laboratory, geological specimens and prehistoric creatures. Visitors can listen to a podcast tour or use their cell phones to hear the history and stories behind the displays at the four-story museum.

The museum's centerpiece is its Texas pterosaur, a prime specimen of the largest flying animal ever found and considered one of the greatest discoveries in the history of paleontology. The towering specimen is sure to impress guests, along with the rest of the exhibits at the museum.

The first floor features the Hall of Geology and Paleontology. It includes dinosaur fossils, meteorites, rocks and minerals. The 5,000-square-foot hall certainly supports the claim that Texas was home to many unusual and spectacular creatures.

Another visitor-friendly exhibit is the Paleo Lab, which is an actual working lab where visitors can watch paleontologists prepare fossils and bones for display, study and preservation.

Other displays throughout the museum include fishes of Texas, nocturnal creatures and an extensive beetle display meant to showcase the unusual fact that beetles make up 1/3 of creatures that inhabit the earth.

And in case you missed it on the way in, the museum also is home to a world-renown example of dinosaur footprints. In fact, paleontologist believe the footprints are of a dinosaur in pursuit of another, one of which eventually became lunch for the day.