Cabinets of Curiosity
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Be sure to explore the drawers in the cabinets! There are lots of interesting artifacts to be found
inside.
The large skull hanging from the ceiling is a replica of that of a Columbian mammoth. However,
the Humpback whale skull further back in the room is real. In 1905, the skull was discovered in
Brazil by a missionary named Zachary Taylor.
The Cabinets of Curiosity room represents how an early museum would have looked. Early
museums were not as interested in educating their visitors at they are today. Instead, they wanted
their visitors to be in awe of the artifacts and impressed with the collectors wealth and world travels.
This is why the Cabinets of Curiosity room does not include the educational object labels that we
are so used to seeing in museums today.
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Museums in the 19th century (cabinets of curiosity) would often times have “fakeries” and
“fantastical creatures” in their collections. Why do you think collectors would have included these
types of objects? Answer: Fantastical creatures in a collection helped to shock and awe visitors.
Can you spot the “fantastical” jackalope in the Mayborn’s Cabinet of Curiosity?
Do you collect anything? If so, do you like to show off your collection to your friends?
Crossroads of Texas
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Waco is a crossroads of land types (tillable soils from the east meets a limestone wall to the west),
climate (green farmland from the east meets brown ranchland of the west), and culture (the
antebellum South meets the Wild West).
The Waco area (I-35 corridor) is a natural travel route. Traveling in this area is easier for wild
animals, humans, and cattle because of the rocky soil and narrowness of the Brazos River. People
continue to travel this route today on I-35.
The Brazos River is the longest river that flows through Texas.
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How did you travel to the Museum? Did you take I-35?
Have you ever been to Lover’s Leap in Cameron Park? If so, do you remember the type of landscape
you saw?
Cretaceous Period
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144 million years ago, in the era known as the Cretaceous Period, most of Texas was under water.
Therefore, most of the fossils you will see in the cabinets are marine fossils.
There is only one dinosaur related object in the room. This object is a footprint of a dinosaur known
as the Acrocanthosaurus. The Acrocanthosaurus was a 30 foot long, 15 foot high, two-legged
carnivore. The footprint is not a replica but is in fact real. The 113 million year old footprint was
found near Glenrose, Texas and was removed in the 1930s.
The model of the marine predator hanging from the wall is a pliosaur. The squid-like creatures that
the pliosaur is about to eat are called belemnites. The fossils on display below the pliosaur model are
from another marine predator known as a plesiosaur. The plesiosaur had a longer neck and smaller
head than the pliosaur.
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Does the plesiosaur remind you of any legendary creatures? Example Answer: Loch Ness Monster
What would you do if you found a pliosaur skeleton in your backyard?
Imagine you traveled through time to Cretaceous Period Texas. What do you think you would see?
Hall of Natural History
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The fossil featured in the middle of the room is a 75 million year old marine turtle known as
the Protostega gigas. Protostega gigas was not able to retract his body into his shell.
Around the room, several dioramas depict different Texas environments and the plants and
animals that live in them.
The cabinet outside the cave hold Tertiary Period fossils (65-3 million years ago). The cabinet
near the insect diorama contains fossils from the Quaternary Period (2-3 million years ago)
through the end of the Pleistocene Period (10,000 years ago).
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Can you find the Texas Horned Lizard (“horny toad”) in the blackland prairie diorama?
Have you seen any of the animals represented in the dioramas in real life?
Cave
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This cave is a replica of a limestone karst cave, which is the most common kind of cave found
in Texas.
Stalactites form on the ceilings of caves when drops of water mixed with calcium carbonate,
calcite, and carbon dioxide fall, leaving a ring-shaped deposit of dissolved calcite behind. The
drops of water that hit the floor of the cave create the growth of stalagmites. Sometimes
stalactites and stalagmites meet, creating a column. (stalactites hang ‘tite’ to the ceiling and
stalagmites ‘mite’ grow up)
Caves are divided into three different zones based on the depth of the cave: entrance, twilight,
and dark. Animals that live in the dark zone (the deepest part of the cave) often do not have
eyes.
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Why do you think animals in the dark zone of the cave sometimes don’t have eyes?
Answer: Eyes are not necessary when living in a dark environment.
Can you find the bats?
Forest
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The forest exhibit displays two
types of Texas forests, the Central Texas Post Oak Forest and
the East Texas Piney Woods, as they would have looked in the late 1800s.
In the Post Oak Forest, the types of trees you will see are post oaks, black jack oaks, black
hickory and winged elm. In the Piney Woods, the types of trees you will see are loblolly pines
and short leaf pines.
Today there are over 22 million acres of National Forests in Texas.
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Activity: This room is a great room to play I-spy, as there are many animals hidden
throughout the forest.
What are the differences that you see between the Central Texas Post Oak Forest and the East
Piney Woods Forest?
Mammoth
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The Waco Mammoth Site became a National Park in 2015 (Waco Mammoth National
Monument).
The type of mammoth many are most familiar with is the Woolly mammoth. However, 24
Columbian mammoths were uncovered at the Waco site.
With further research, we now know that the video is not completely accurate. It is now
thought that the mammoths found at the site died from multiple flooding events, not all at
once as depicted in the video.
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Do you think the mammoths were trying to protect their young from the flood?
Have you ever thought about mammoths living in Texas before?
Hall of Extinction/Emergence of Man
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The extinction of one species
opens up a space for a new species to emerge. One example of
this is the rise of mammals, who flourished after the extinction of the dinosaurs.
There are two types of extinction. Background extinction is where only a few species die out.
Causes for this type of extinction include climatic changes and changes in sea level. The second
type of extinction, called mass extinction, is sudden and occurs on a worldwide scale. In this
type of extinction a very large number of species die out.
There are two sites depicted in the Emergence of Man room. The Horn Rock Shelter Site gives
archaeologist information on rock shelters, where early humans lived, held rituals, cooked
food, and buried their dead. The Stone Site uncovered a Tawakani village, which was visited
by the Spanish explorer Althanase de Meziere in the 1770s.
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If you were an archaeologist what would you want to discover?
Why do you think archaeologist found European glass beads at the Stone Site?
Answer: European glass beads found at the site are evidence that the Tawakani traded with
early European settlers.
Texas Lifeways
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There are four different types of houses displayed in Texas Lifeways. These four types are the
Grass House, built by the Huaco, the Tepee, built by the Comanche, the Log House, dated
between 1842-1849, and the Rock House, built by Norwegian immigrants during the 1850’s.
These four types of houses could have all been found within a 50 mile radius in 1850’s Central
Texas.
The Huaco built permanent grass houses because they were agricultural, which allowed them
to stay in one place. The Comanche however, were nomadic so they needed houses that were
easily moveable, like tepees.
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What items do you see inside the log cabin? Are any of the items similar to those in your
home?
What type of hides do you think were used to create a tepee? Answer: female bison hides