Well, our time in Montana is sadly coming to an end. We will be leaving this Saturday morning and heading to Idaho. Even though we are really looking forward to being in Idaho and seeing our friends, we also hate leaving beautiful Montana. We have really loved our time here. I took a picture of this old truck and flowers. This is at the entrance of the Indian Creek Campground. I just think it is so unique and so pretty.
On Wednesday July 28th, we took a day trip to Bozeman, Montana to go to the Museum of the Rockies and it did not disappoint. It was incredible. The entrance was amazing. We had a lady take our picture. This is once again going to be picture overload but there was just so many cool things to see and very interesting.
Okay before I start with all the pictures, I really have to say this….as I was walking and looking at all these prehistoric creatures….my mind really was running away with myself because I was thinking…..you know what would I do if all of a sudden one of these came alive……..well…..as I looked at the T Rex’s foot….I would just have to pray the foot or tail missed me……lol. Okay enough of that….here come the amazing pictures.
Below is a Triceratops Vertebra that is 66 million years old
Below is a Hadrosads Femur that its 75 million years old. Unbelievable.
Below are fossils. The one on the left is Triceratops horn and on the right is a Mammoth Elephant tooth.
This is an enormous vertebra from base of an Adult Sauropod Tail
Lower Leg of a Baby Dipodocus – baby weighed 20 lbs
Next Juvenile Dipodocus hind leg bone. The Dipodocus was 25 ft long and weighed 2 ton.
Next Adult Dipodocus hind leg bone. It was 70 feet long and weighed 20 ton.
When dinosaurs hatch, they are very small compared to their parents. A Maiasaura baby is 16″ long and weighs 1 1/2 lbs. The parents are 30 feet long and weigh 4000 lbs. The babies grow fast at 1 year they are 9 feet long.
The Daspletosaurus has long, slender foot and toe bones, whereas the Brachylophosaurus has short, wide foot and toe bones. The Daspletosaurus was an ancestor of the Tyrannosaufus Rex. The Daspletosaurus was alive 74 Dillon years ago and the Brachylophosaurus was alive 78 million years ago.
The top predatory dinosaurs 75 million years ago were Troodon and Saurornitholestes. Saurornitholestes was only about a 1 1/2 meters long and the Troodon grew to 2 meters in length. Both may have hunted in groups and both were able to down large plant eaters. The Troodon remains are often found on Maiasaura nesting grounds, which suggest they might have preyed upon nestlings.
The lower jaw of the duck bill Brachylophosourus. The giant Maxilla is the largest duck bill jaw known an represents an animal more than 50 ft long with a skull more than 5 ft in length. The duck bill was larger than the largest known T Rex.
The T Rex skull measured 5 ft in length and one of the largest T Rex skulls in the world.
Look at the size of this T Rex’s foot.
Edmontosaurus jaws from a juvenile and gigantic adult. The Juvenile has 30 row of small teeth and the giant has 66 rows of large teeth. All dinasaurs replaced their teeth on a regular basis, so as the animal grew larger the replacement teeth also became larger.
Ankylosaurus – An armored dinosaur. This dinosaur has a very huge boney club at the end of his tail. They grew to around 30 feet on length and weighed as much as 20,000 lbs. The armor is made of a special kind of tissue called metaplastic bone derived from cartilage.
Below the boney club at the end of the tail.
The Ornithomimus – The Ostrich dinosaur. It is lightly built, has a beak instead of teeth, is 13 feet long and weighs 100 lbs.
The Ornithomimus tail vertebrae, pelvic bone, partial hand and foot.
A mammoth lower jaw. Over a lifetime both mastodons and mammoths used & replaced a total of 24 teeth. Six on each side of the upper and lower jaws. As they grow older each tooth would be worn down and pushed out of the front jaw. Another molar would move forward to replace the lost tooth. The sixth molar would not be replaced but would be worn down until useless. Notice that the chewing surfaces on these teeth are very worn, indicating they had been used for a very long time. This was a very old mature mammoth was probably 45 years old.
We then moved on to the old days. This is just a few things, I thought were interesting.
Really?????? reusable condoms and you could even have a tin to put them in…..OMG…..YUK!!!!!
We then moved to the reptile house.
The Red Spitting Cobra. 5 ft long. The spitting cobra are the only snake that use venom at a distance. Venom is sprayed from an opening near the tip of each fang. It can be ejected over 8 feet into the eyes of a predator causing irrational and temporary blindness.
The Western Diamondback Rattlesnake – 7 feet long
Reticulated Pyton – 16 to 22 ft
Star Tortoise
Snake necked turtle
Aligator snapping turtle
This iguana endures blistering tropical sun, eats salty plants and rarely gets fresh water. To conserve water, special glands in the head filter salt and drains into the nasal passages. The iguana sneezes to expel the brine.
On Thursday, July 29th, we got up super early and took off for the Glacier National Park. I hate to be negative but we were very disappointed. Maybe we were thinking it would be like Yellowstone and it is nothing like Yellowstone. It is overly commercial and everything is over the top expensive but we can say we have been there. The drive up was really pretty though.
This is Lake Seeley…..it was gorgeous. The town is also called Lake Seeley, Montana
This was in Flathead National Forest. People were fishing in this and it was beautiful.
We finally got here.
This was pretty much what we saw in the Glacier National park. A lot of burnt trees…..this was in Polebridge, Montana in Glacier National Park.
I had to get a picture of these pretty wildflowers….really the prettiest thing we saw in Glacier National Park.
So tomorrow, we will start getting things packed up and put away so we can leave Montana for Idaho. We have had such a good time here and we will be back…..if you have never been to this state, you need to plan a trip….you will not be disappointed….it is wonderful. So until next time Montana….thank you for a wonderful two months.
Until next time…..I will be blogging from Idaho.