Explore the Collection

These phalanges (toe bones) came from a Chalicothere. These weird beasts had horse-like heads and hooves, but their hooves were claw shaped. Originally the "claws" were thought to be from a carnivore, but they were probably used to pull down branches to feed on leaves and twigs. These fossils were found at Agate Fossil Beds and are around 23 million years old.
 

This fossil is from the diving bird Hesperornis. This flightless bird inhabited the oceans of the Late Cretaceous, during the time of the dinosaurs. It had poorly developed wings, and its beak was full of sharp teeth that made trapping fish an easy task. It could also get to be up to 5 feet long. This specimen was found in Kansas back in 1936.

 

Titanothere, more commonly called Brontothere were related to rhinos and horses. They're now extinct. The last Brontothere roamed Nebraska 34 million years ago. This skull was collected in the 1950s and was removed from its field jacket and worked on by UNSM researchers in the Morrill Hall Visible Lab in 2019. 

Alligator fossils have been found at multiple sites from the northernmost counties in Nebraska to the southernmost. This photo shows a couple of 14 million year old dorsal osteoderms from southern Nebraska. Osteoderms (scutes) are bones embedded in the skin that offer protection and aid in thermal regulation. These form the ridges you see along the backs of alligators today.

Approximately 40 of these small cranes were found at the bottom of the ash bed at Ashfall Fossil Beds. They are closely related to the crowned cranes of Africa. Specimens at Ashfall Fossil Beds are so well preserved you can see tendons, feather impressions and even the last meal they ate.

These fossils, a lower jaw and upper arm bone from a hairy-tailed bat (Lasiurus), were found in northeast Nebraska and are around 3 million years old. Bat bones are small and fragile, so finding them is very rare, but we do have fossils from several sites, with some as old as 28 million years

This partial caribou antler came from Lincoln County, Nebraska. The UNSM collection has several antlers from Nebraska & Iowa, indicating that during the Ice Age, caribou lived much farther south than they do today.

This fossil is from an entelodont from the Agate Fossil Beds in western Nebraska. This fearsome beast had a skull and jaws that measure nearly 3 feet long. Luckily for the other animals living with it 23 million years ago, these pig-like omnivores fed on roots, tubers, and scavenged carcasses instead of hunting prey. The canines are impressive themselves, approaching the size of a human fist. A full skeleton of Dinohyus (terrible pig) was found at the Agate waterhole in 1908 and can be seen when you come to visit Morrill Hall.

This 33 million year old oreodont skull came from the Nebraska panhandle. Oreodonts were common in North America between 38 and 15 million years ago before going extinct around 5 million years ago. They have no living descendants, but they are artiodactyls (even-toed hoofed mammals) and so are distantly related to pigs, sheep and antelope. The UNSM collection has thousands of oreodont skulls. You can see scientists preparing some of these skulls when you visit Morrill Hall's Visible Lab.

This rear left paddle came from a short necked plesiosaur, Dolichorhynchops. This 70-million-year-old specimen was found in northwest Nebraska and is one of only 6 plesiosaurs in UNSM Collections. These marine reptiles (not dinosaurs) would have fed on the fish and cephalopods of the Western Interior Seaway that covered Nebraska during the late Cretaceous period. Notice they have 5 digits like humans, but many more bones in each "finger."

The bottom fossil is the tarsometatarsus (lower leg bone) of a 500,000 year old northern pygmy owl from southern Nebraska. These tiny owls live in subarctic regions today, which means Nebraska had a cooler climate back when this guy was alive. Pygmy owls only get to be about 6" long, and this one (compared to a modern great horned owl -- bone on top) may not even be that big.