A Really Big Show About Elephants
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The Earth’s largest land mammals will get a hefty dose of attention at “Elephants! 40 Million Years of Evolution,” opening Jan. 25 at the San Diego Natural History Museum in Balboa Park.
The traveling exhibit, created by two Minnesota museums and last seen in Memphis, Tenn., adds some unique elements in San Diego: an educational demonstration with live elephants and the first display of ancient specimens found in San Diego County, including a full skeleton of a million-year-old mammoth from Anza-Borrego Desert State Park.
Other notable specimens include full skeletons of a dwarf mammoth and a gomphothere (an elephant relative found in Nebraska in 1994); a model of a 13-foot-tall woolly mammoth skeleton found in 1994 in Wisconsin; and a model of a baby mammoth, with skin and fur still attached, that was found frozen in Siberia in 1977. Videos and interactive displays will tell the story of elephants, mammoths, mastodons and related species over the eons.
On weekends, weather permitting, elephants from Perris, Calif.-based Have Trunk Will Travel, which provides animals for film and television, will demonstrate natural behaviors with a handler outdoors behind the museum.
The “live elephant encounters” cost $2 per person; children under 3 are free. The rest of the exhibit is included with museum admission: $6 adults, lower fees for seniors, military and children. The exhibit closes April 20. Information: (619) 232-3821.
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