Last Saturday, I had the chance to go to the Paleontological Research Institution’s Museum of the Earth. When we pulled up to the museum, I thought that the multiple building would be a part of the exhibition and was anticipating seeing a larger museum, but perhaps my expectations were too presumptuous. Growing up near DC, I’ve been to the National Museum of Natural History plenty of times, and went into the Museum of the Earth with the expectation that it would focus not only on geological history in terms of animals, but have a broader range (again, I guess I’ve been spoiled by the Smithsonian and it’s largess).

Nonetheless, it was an interesting experience. Our tour guide began talking about the history of the Paleontological Research Institution and the museum, mentioning its impressively large collection of fossils and exhibits from the Smithsonian that were newly housed in Ithaca. She handed out certain fossils, but my horn coil was gone by the first round of extinctions. The first thing that catches your eye when you walk into the museum is the large right whale skeleton – right because they were the “right” ones to be hunted – who had died from fishing lines.

After walking through the rooms with different geological time periods and seeing some sea scorpions and dinosaur models, we ended with the emergence of mammals and questions about ice ages and climate change. Glaciers that used to cover New York state were estimated to be over a mile thick over Ithaca (which is crazy to think about).

Though the tour was short and the museum was smaller than expected, I was pleasantly surprised by what was there. I had no idea a museum in Ithaca would have the resources to maintain a large collection of fossils and gain enough recognition that it would contain previous Smithsonian exhibits. If we had more time, I would have liked to take some more time to appreciate the art. The background scenes and artist depictions of animals were extremely detailed and beautiful to look at, and I would definitely go back to spend some more time to appreciate some of the finer details of the museum.