Exhibit Halls

Dynamic Earth	Alabama: Sand to Cedars	NatureSpace	Attack and Defense
Birds of the Americas	Environments of Africa	Ancient Egypt	Changing Exhibit Gallery
Important Information		Did You Know ...

Visitors to Anniston Museum, please note:
Touching exhibit materials and specimens is forbidden and will cause your expulsion from the Museum. Touching causes damage and can destroy irreplacable Museum treasures. We need your help to protect our exhibits so people may continue to enjoy them in years to come. Please do not touch or allow your children to touch any of the exhibits, mounted specimens or exhibited materials UNLESS they are specifically marked with a green "hands-on" sticker. Thank you for helping us protect these important treasures for the next generation!

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Dynamic Earth This recently redesigned exhibit hall explores the world of dinosaurs, fossils and minerals, as well as geological processes, such as earthquakes, volcanoes and plate tectonics, that formed – and continue to form – the Earth. A life-sized stegosaurus skeleton model, a diorama featuring life-size Pteranodon and Albertosaurus models and a realistic walk-through construction of an Alabama cave environment add to this hall’s dynamic atmosphere. Also featured are rocks and mineral specimens from the collection of the Smithsonian Institution, fossils - including the tooth of a 75-foot-long pre-historic shark, and a hurricane ball. back to top
Alabama: Sand to Cedars Take a hike from Alabama’s mountains to its seashore in this fascinating exhibit hall. Wind your way through limestone ridges, cool forests, wide rivers and steamy swamps. End your journey at the coast where life clings to wind-swept dunes. See the plants and animals that make Alabama the fourth most biologically diverse state in the country. This hall features a 250-gallon aquarium of indigenous fish and a 12-foot American alligator. back to top
NatureSpace Discover the natural mysteries of an Alabama backyard and forest in this hands-on discovery room. Interactive exhibit stations – including computers and microscopes – explore plants, animals, geology, archaeology, and the environment. Dig for fossils, explore a cave, hear a toad and get a shake from an earthquake! (Please note: Nature Space closes at 4 pm daily) back to top
Attack and Defense Discover the life and death relationship of predator and prey in this exhibit hall of North American wildlife. Live snakes and a black widow spider illustrate the unique abilities of animal survival. Color-coded slashes on exhibit panels define the animals’ chemical, behavioral, or physical response to danger. back to top
Birds of the Americas The Regar-Werner Ornithology Collection forms the nucleus of this exhibit. Many of the birds are mounted in natural habitat groupings with painted background dioramas. More than 400 species are represented. The collection dates from 1860 to the early 1900s making it one of the oldest diorama collections in the United States. Extinct and endangered species, including a passenger pigeon and ivory-billed woodpecker are a focal point of this exhibit. back to top
Environments of Africa This open-air exhibit hall explores the concept that every animal plays an important role in maintaining the stability of the Earth by adding to or taking from the environment only what it needs to survive. This hall illustrates how animals adapt and survive in one of nature’s most extreme environments: the African savannah. This hall features an African elephant, a life-sized recreation of a Baobab Tree, and a 9-foot-tall termite mound. See the latest addition to the *Environments of Africa* Exhibit Hall, just behind the Baobab tree: a special habitat enclosure housing a living exhibit of African Rainforest tree frogs ... Under the Canopy: Frogs of Africa includes beautiful, tiny specimens of exotic tree frogs from halfway around the planet. Peer inside for a glimpse of the Golden mantella or the African Big-eyed tree frog. Push a button to hear the sounds of these amazing creatures, plus their habitat-mates, the Beautiful mantella and the Green and black mantella. back to top
Ancient Egypt Baboons warm themselves in the rising sun, birds gather on a muddy riverbank, and a tiny beetle pushes a ball of dung across the sand. These natural rhythms of life led ancient Egyptians to create a belief system that lasted more than 3,000 years. Discover why these animals were deified, explore 2,300-year-old Ptolemaic Period mummies, and sniff the aromas of mummification in this exhibit hall. New for 2012: See the results of 2010's CT scan of the Museum's smaller mummy, Tasherytpamenekh! View a short, looping documentary film of the process, including some incredible 3-D imagery from beneath the wrappings! Plays daily on the wall mounted monitor in the Ancient Egypt Hall. back to top
Changing Exhibits Gallery The Museum fosters a visual arts program in various forms. With the completion of the Changing Exhibits Gallery in 1982, the Museum embarked on a formalized program of temporary exhibitions each year. The visual arts allow the expressive statements of a human’s relationship to the natural environment. A unique interrelationship exists between natural history and the arts. The Museum strives to explore this connection through a changing exhibit program that supports and complements the central natural history theme of the Museum. back to top
Did you know ... ... all the animals in the Museum Exhibit Halls, with the exception of the dinosaur models in Dynamic Earth and the Hippo in Environments of Africa, are real, mounted specimens! ... the natural oils on your hands will destroy the mounts and eat into the feathers, fur or skins! Museum staff must use cotton gloves to safely handle the specimen when moving or cleaning them. Please don't touch the mounted specimens! ... food, drinks, gum, candy and tobacco products are forbidden inside the Exhibit Halls because the can cause damage to the exhibits directly by spilling, staining or sticking, or indirectly by drawing insects that can eat and destroy the mounts! ... the humidity in the Exhibit Halls is closely monitored and controlled to protect the exhibits. We don't allow bottled drinking water inside the Exhibit Halls because an accidental spill can cause hundreds of dollars worth of damage! ... many of the objects and mounted specimens on exhibit are dozens of years old. Some, like the birds in the Birds of America Hall are hundreds of years old. Our two Egyptian mummies are over two thousand years old! back to top