Bracelet Boas, fabulous fossils, and a mystery unravled

Today the Natural History Museum had a grand opening of their new exhibit, Titanoboa: Monster Snake. Apparently it's a dinosaur boa fossil measuring 48 feet and weighing 2,500 pounds. We didn't pay to see the huge snake bones, but the museum had cool (free) things to see all over the place today.

 Josh wanted a picture with this fossil. They also let us choose from a bunch of ocean fossils that we could take home. Ethan got an old black whale rib. I chose a heavy black Dugong rib, similar to the middle rib in this (link) picture. Josh and Ashley chose smooth seashells.

This is called a Bracelet Boa, because Cleopatra wore them as accessories around her wrist.

 I can see why people keep snakes as pets. Their skin is so amazing, and their faces are so cute...

 Until they decide to wrap around your neck and kill you.

Luckily this guy just wanted to crawl into my shirt and get warm instead of kill me.

We got to pet a turtle...

and than become a pre-teenage mutant ninja turtle.

Go Gators!

It was fun to talk to people who were so passionate about what they do,

whether it's about bugs, turtles, sea shells or whatever.

This guy is the president of the local fossil hunter clubs.

He told us we can find shark teeth and other cool fossils in any of the streams or rivers here in The Swamp. Then he gave the kids their own bags of shark teeth. 

This was part of his shark teeth collection. Apparently not all sharks have pointy teeth. This guy has pearly teeth. That's the kind of shark I hope I run into at the beach.

Ethan was proud of his new sticker collection.

They had a puzzle you could do out on the grass that shows how big the Titanaboa is in real life.

Pretty big!

I'll never make fun of the movie Anaconda again.

The library's book mobile was on the scene, too (you can see it in the back ground behind our giant snake puzzle), and they gave the kids bags of crayons, coloring pages and noise makers, like kazoos and clackers.

We appreciated them so much, we considered going to use them at the library, where THEY could appreciate them too!

A campus taco truck was conveniently parked outside the museum so we thought we'd give them a try. 

The kids decided it was the BEST. DAY. EVER.

They say that a lot. I guess we have lots of best days :)

And here's a cool update.

Remember when we found this seashell last week, and we didn't know what it was?

It was delicate and broke easily, and I wondered if it was a baby turtle shell or maybe a turtle egg shell.

Well, since we were hanging out with all kinds of experts at the museum today,

I showed the turtle guy this picture, since it was still on my camera.

He didn't know what it was.

He said, "go talk to the seashell guys."

So I showed them this picture. 

They got all excited.

And this is what it is:

A Calico Crab.

Mystery solved.