Past

Past & Present's addition of 500 square feet of exhibit space is devoted exclusively to the exhibition of geologic specimens for your enjoyment, with a large focus on fossils and mineral

s. Our new fossil gallery features many of our old specimens, and showcases many new additions. We are currently working on an exhibit dedicated to New York State and Southern Ontario fossils and minerals.

Our fossil gallery features fossils from around the world, from our Cretaceous dinosaur site in

South Dakota (prepared and unprepared fossils), and fossils of Western New York. We have many permanent

displays on fossils, along with various rotating exhibits. Also on display are exhibits on Pleistocene mammals, sharks, fish, reptiles and amphibians, and much much more. We also have a "Fossil of the Month" exhibit, featuring a different fossil each month. Teachers and students, scout groups, and individuals have enjoyed and supported our efforts to help this project succeed.

Here I am standing next to our 9' tall leg from the dinosaur Edmontosaurus from our field site in South Dakota. This last collecting season, we were able to add a sacrum and ribs, along with a few metacarpals and metatarsals from an Edmontosaur to our collection. We eventually hope to be able to reconstruct much of this hadrosaur for our museum. Also on display are two life size shark jaw models of the prehistoric marine predator Carcharodon megalodon. (One has real teeth).

This incredible specimen is of a spider that had been caught in the act of guarding its meal of a grasshopper. It was

found in Columbia and is preserved in fossil tree sap called copal. Dating for this deposit is in debate, with estimates being from several thousand years up to 16 million years old. Copal is generally considered a very old tree sap and has different properties than amber.

Land Tortoise- Stylemys nebrascensis Leidy

Oligocene (24-34 Million Years Old)

White River Badlands, South Dakota

This 2008 addition to the Past & Present collection is a large fossil land tortoise from South Dakota. Similar to today’s gopher tortoise, this reptile lived at a time when oreodonts, camels, rhinoceros, and saber-toothed cats all shared the landscape of the central plains states. This specimen is unusual for its size and for the fact that it has fossilized bones in all four feet and some foot claws. It has a concave plastron (bottom shell) suggesting this specimen may have been a male. This fossilized shell is over 22" long and weighs over 100 pounds!

Bull Head Shark

This yet to be determined species of shark comes from the Middle Cretaceous (approximately 100 million years ago) Lagerstatten of Hjoula, Lebanon. This unusual, near complete specimen retained most of its cartilaginous skeleton, along with skin and the dermal denticles ("skin teeth").

Elephant Bird Egg

This feature fossil from our museum is an egg from the Pleistocene bird Aepyornis, or Elephant bird. Compared to the modern ostrich that can weigh 350 pounds, this giant native of Madagascar stood eight feet tall and could weigh over 1000 pounds, making it one of the largest birds to ever walk the Earth. The egg of the Elephant bird was 12 to 13 inches long, and could hold up to 2 gallons of fluid. This bird became extinct at the end of the Ice Age about 10,000 years ago. In the photo, the Elephant bird egg is on the left and the modern ostrich egg is on the right.

Past & Present
3767 South Park Avenue • Blasdell, NY 14219
(716) 825-2361
fossils1@verizon.net

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						A Visit From Channel 2's Kevin O'Neill