Meet A Mount: Peabody Museum Stegosaurus

Meet a Mount: Peabody Museum Stegosaurus

Taxon: Stegosaurus ungulatus

Specimen Number: PMNH 1853 and PMNH 1858

Year Created: 1910

Stegosaurus was a strange looking animal, but with its long, tottering legs and minuscule head, the Peabody Museum of Natural History Stegosaurus ungulatus mount is stranger still. This mount, constructed by Hugh Gibb and W.S. Benton under the supervision of curator Richard Lull, owes its bizarre proportions to the fact that it is a chimeric combination of at least five differently-sized individuals.

O.C. Marsh named Stegosaurus ungulatus in 1877 based on fossils found at Como Bluff, Wyoming, and illustrated it with eight tail spikes. Although modern researchers have since rejected this reconstruction, the mount at Marsh’s home institution still sports the extra-spikey tail. In another way, however, this Stegosaurus mount was ahead of its time. Lull insisted that the tail was held aloft, rather than dragging on the ground, to better function as a defensive weapon.

The Indian Placement Program

From 1956 to 1996, the Mormon Church operated a program where Native American kids were baptized and placed in Mormon foster homes during the school year. The idea was fostering would “lighten” them. The Mormon Church teaches that Native Americans were originally white, but God punished them, and made them darker.

It began being criticized in the 1970s for weakening the children’s connection to their Native American families and communities, and causing psychological damage. And today the Mormon Church is being sued in tribal court for allegations of abuse while in their foster homes.

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defpuma

9 years ago

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defpuma

9 years ago

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brandon sanderson

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defpuma

9 years ago

Unpopular opinion: Allosaurus is way cooler than T. Rex.

Team Allosaurus 2k15

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defpuma

9 years ago

The Dinosaur Lords Interiors By Richard Anderson.

The Dinosaur Lords interiors by Richard Anderson.

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defpuma

9 years ago

Amazingly, we have a photograph of a man who crossed the Delaware with George Washington. This is Conrad Heyer, born in 1749 and photographed in 1852 at age 103. He served in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, crossed the Delaware with Washington in December 1776, and fought in several major battles. The Maine Historical Society says that this makes him the earliest-born human being ever to be photographed.

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