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David Attenborough visited this once and I decided to go there just for that. Some of them are reconstructions and some of them are real. Ofcourse I was not allowed to look at real ones in storage, any paleontologists here from Baden Würrtemburg ( maybe @Ludwigia) can tell. Has a geological mapping of the German state around Rhine river.

My kids and I have had a very successful year, so far, collecting a ton of Miocene fossils from the Calvert Cliffs. Along with some larger shark teeth, cetacean bones, etc., we accumulated a couple of containers full of smaller and broken teeth, ray plate pieces, unidentifiable bone fragments, and the like. After some discussion, my boys and I agreed it would be great if we could donate many of these "excess" finds to the Calvert Marine Museum to support their youth educational programs. This is actually where my kids and I first learned about fossil collecting from the Calvert Cliffs ourselves some years ago, and where the kids were able to search for (and take home) their first fossils from a simulated beach in the museum's "Discovery Room." We knew somebody must have donated those fossils, so maybe the museum would like to have ours. It could be a great opportunity to give back to the museum--and clear some counter space at home. So I sent a blind email to the museum's main address with our offer and shortly thereafter heard back from Dr. Stephen Godfrey, Curator of Paleontology. Although the Discovery Room was temporarily closed due to COVID, he said the museum was still giving out fossils in other educational programs and would love to accept a fossil donation from the boys. We were welcome to mail it in (boring), or bring it in in person (fun). Well, my boys had a scheduled day off from school last Friday, so we decided to take advantage and drive down to the museum with our donations. (Sadly, my daughter DID have school and couldn't join us.) Altogether, we brought down probably 500+ teeth, plates, bone pieces, coral fragments--including a bunch of teeth over 1/2"--the kind of stuff that a new kid would be thrilled to take home. When we got to the museum, Stephen came over from his offices and met us in a conference room to accept the goods. We sat down to do some paperwork (yes-paperwork!) and talk about what we had been collecting and, especially, the boys' best finds. Stephen seemed really impressed with the boys' willingness to give up some great stuff. I was proud of them for doing it. Well, after the transfer was done, Stephen offered to show us around the museum a bit. Of course, we jumped at the chance for a personal tour from the head curator. So off we went through the Paleontology wing into the fossil prep lab. There we met one of the volunteer preparators cleaning up a porpoise skull and we got a chance to see all of the prep tools and learn some prep techniques. Stephen showed us a bunch of fossils in the preparation process, including a jacketed baleen whale skull they had collected just a few weeks ago. He also showed us a mostly complete turtle carapace, some great vertebrae, and a lot of other cool skeletal material. We got to ask a lot of questions and learned a ton. Next, Stephen invited us to join him in the adjacent building to check out the fossil repository, not open to the public--or the way the boys and I thought of it--the inner sanctum! In this space there were movable shelves filled with boxes of cataloged fossils for long-term storage. But laid out in front were a few tables loaded with fossils that had recently come in and had yet to be processed. Stephen talked us through a bunch of these, including some pathological bones, a partly crystal-covered meg tooth, casts of a bear-dog jaw, a white shark tooth made into an Indian point, and--the highlight for me--a miocene rhino horn found at the cliffs. It was incredible what we saw in there! After getting our visual and tactile fill, we thanked Stephen for spending so much time with us --over an hour--and let him get back to his work. I know some on the forum know Stephen well, so this won't be news to them, but he is an incredibly knowledgeable and friendly person. It was great to meet him and learn so much from him. Back at the museum, we checked out all the fossil exhibits we had seen many times before. But what made this time different is that we ourselves had collected some of the kinds of stuff we were looking at in the displays. It was really cool to hear the boys say--"Hey, I have one of those," or "Dad, that's like the one you found." Having collected ourselves, the exhibit was so much more relatable--and also inspiring in all the things still out there to find. And, just to close the loop, on the way out, the boys stopped at the kids' fossil education table and there on the sign it said, plain as day, "1 fossil bag per child." So it was great for the boys to see that their donations would go to keep that table going and end up in some little kids' fossil baggie to take home themselves--and maybe start the cycle all over again. I hope you enjoy the pix! (P.S. The pix are posted with Stephen's permission, so no worries about that.)