Take A Trip Back In Time To The Ice Age
DENVER (CBS4)- Take a trip back in time thousands of years without a time machine or leaving Denver at the new "Mammoths and Mastodons: Titans of the Ice Age" exhibit at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.
"We have mammoths and mastodons, short-faced bears, scimitar-toothed cats, all sorts of fun, ice age animals you can see, you can touch these amazing replicas that are life-sized," said DMNS educator Samantha Richards. "You can participate in interactive sessions to learn about what they ate, how much they ate, what they left behind after they ate and take pictures next to them."
The exhibit features life-sized replicas of the animals that roamed the earth during the most recent ice age.
"We've got the whole ecosystem. So we've got the predators we've got the deer and the antelope that live alongside them and all of the little things, salamanders and beavers," said DMNS Curator Joe Sertich.
"Mammoths are grazers they eat grass, mastodons are browsers they lived in forests and ate trees and shrubs. Mastodons are a little bit smaller than a Colombian Mammoth," said Richards.
"All of these ice age animals went extinct around 10,000 years ago at the end of the ice age," said Richards.
Some of the fossils on display came from the dig in Snowmass when a bulldozer operator discovered a bone while working on the expansion of the Ziegler Reservoir.
More than 4,800 bones have been unearthed and scientists have identified 41 species of animals. The find include bones from mammoth, mastodon, ground sloth, camel, deer and giant bison as well as from smaller animals such as beavers, lemmings and squirrels.
"Snowmass is about 120,000 to 150,000 years old. This is the first time you can actually come out and see some of the bones from the collection in Snowmass two years ago," said Sertich.
The ice age animals show some similarities to large mammals wandering around today.
"The Colombian Mammoth is closely related to Asian Elephants, that would be the thing we have today that is most similar to a Columbian Mammoth," said Richards.
Visitors will be able to learn more about the animals that roamed the Earth thousands of years ago.
"Mammoths are grazers they eat grass, mastodons are browsers they lived in forests and ate trees and shrubs. Mastodons are a little bit smaller than a Colombian Mammoth," said Richards.
"Mammoths and Mastodons: Titans of the Ice Age" is open at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science Feb. 15 through May 27.
LINK: dmns.org
