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I'm back with Part-2. I am adding the fossil specimens that weren't included in the last post. I will try my best to arrange all the specimens in the order of their origin just to make this post a little interesting. Feel free to point out if I make any mistakes. Let's start with Cambrian.. Ordovician period Silurian Period Devonian period Mississippian Period Pennsylvanian Period Well I have hit the post picture limit again. So I will continue in the comments of this post.

The glorious warm weather we encountered this Saturday prompted us to go check out Doane falls in Royalston, MA. After spending a couple of hours hiking along the beautiful waterfalls, we decided to pay a visit to one of our favorite museums in Amherst. Located on the campus of Amherst College is the Beneski Museum of Natural History which houses an extensive collection of Edward Hitchcock's “Dinosaur tracks from the Connecticut river valley” and a large collection of fossils from mammoths to ammonites to rocks. The admission is free of cost. The museum has 3 floors and is accessible. Even though it's not too big. It has a nice variety of specimens. Words are not enough to describe the museum so I took some pictures of everything that caught my eye. Hope you enjoy the pictures. Please forgive me for any glare that you see in the pictures. Let’s start with Dinosaurs, Mammoths and skeletons of other species. This is the specimen of a Moose like creature. The specimen on top is a Mammoth and the one on the bottom is the ancestor of present day bears. The specimen on top is a Colombian Wooly Mammoth,the one on the bottom right is a saber-toothed cat and the one on the left is an ancestor of modern day wolves and dogs. Forgive me for not including the scientific names. Closeup of the relative of modern day wolves and dogs. A collection of mammals from ancestors of rhinos,cows to camels. Let's move on to a bit older and bigger beasts and everyone's favorite Dinosaurs. A plaster cast of a T-Rex skull and a dinosaur nest. Now moving onto the much awaited Dinosaur tracks... Here's a link to the playlist which has an audio and video tour of some of the dinosaur trackways and things like fossilized rain droplets and water ripples. Audio/Video Tour Here’s a link to the PDF Version if someone wants to read. This post has already become a bit too heavy to edit. So keep an eye out for Part-2. Hope you enjoyed my post so far.

This past Saturday, my family treated me to a nice day out to celebrate my birthday. My lovely wife asked what I wanted to do. I took the opportunity to ask to visit a museum I have been wanting to visit. We packed ourselves into the Corolla, and headed to Springfield Massachusetts, to pick my son up from college. 50 minutes later, he was getting into the car. Off we went. Our destination was the Beneski Museum of Natural History, at Amherst College, in Amherst, Massachusetts, USA. This museum, which is free to the public, houses the Hitchcock Ichnology Collection, one of the largest collections of dinosaur footprints anywhere. Edward Hitchcock is considered a pioneer in, if not the father of, Ichnology. He started collecting the footprints in 1835, 7 years prior to Sir Richard Owen naming the taxon, Dinosauria. A minister, then a geologist, and the third president of Amherst College. He wrote several papers about the footprints, laying groundwork for the paleontological study of ichnology. Quite the Gentleman Scholar. While the museum does have many other fossils and casts, and quite an impressive mineral collection, ... the Hitchcock Ichnology Collection is the cornerstone of the museum. The museum is free of charge to the public. You can park anywhere on campus on the weekends. I highly recommend this place to anyone interested in fossils, or minerals. So without any further ado, ... on to the pictures. First the drawers -