Located in Balboa Park at 1788 El Prado, San Diego, CA 92101
In 1981, this fountain was dedicated to Beatrice Evenson, the founder of The Committee of 100. Their purpose was to preserve the original Spanish colonial architecture from the 1915 Panama-California Exposition. It's positioned just north of the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center. Balboa Park has 1200 acres of gardens, walking paths, theaters, the San Diego Zoo, and museums. Here is the Natural History Museum, home to many exhibits of animal and plant life from the distant past to the present.
They have birds, bugs, dinosaurs; even a collection of bee photographs.
The Living Lab has live reptiles that mostly don't move.
These ants are about 3-4 times the size of a normal house ant.
Why is it that snakes look dangerous when they slither and stick out their tongue? Many of the other reptiles were content to remain in place, resting.
The Natural History Museum has four floors, plants on the top, research on the third, main exhibits on the second, and the Living Lab on the bottom floor.
This cat is crouched, ready to pounce.
Whatever happened to the Mastodons and Mammoths?
The Dire Wolf and Saber-tooth Cat look dangerous.
Look at the size of Harlan's Ground Sloth compared to the toddler here. With fur, it appeared as a large beaver. Luckily, it only eats plants.
Suspended above the second floor is a Sea Cow replica and skeleton. They were up to 30 feet in length. For comparison, the descendants of this Gray whale grow up to 49 feet long and weigh 90,000 lbs.
The Megalodon or "Big Tooth" shark eclipses both at a length of 60 feet and weight of 130,000 lbs.
You get a better view of its scale from above. The head is just above the guardrail of the second floor. You can compare the Megalodon's size with the people walking below.
This is the last thing its prey would see. Up to five rows of 250 serrated teeth which allowed it to tear through flesh with violent shaking of its head.
The Brontothere is a cross between rhinoceros and horse. Unlike the Megalodon, it is a herbivore.
The Ankylosaur was an armored dinosaur with a tail club it used as defense against predators.
Look at these shells, the larger ones are roughly 2 feet in diameter.
Why were dinosaurs so big? This red skinned Lambeosaurus is pretty large compared to the person walking by below.
This green Albertosaurus is about the same size.
More recognizable are bears from our era. What's it looking at?
Imagine if this whale skull was a bird beak. That would be a big bird.
They do have a bird display along with a strange interactive crab exhibit.
This frog seems indifferent.
More familiar creatures: a Red King Crab, a giant 2-foot clam, an assortment of bats including the leftmost one called a Flying Fox with a 5-foot wingspan.
A display of birds from the small Hummingbird to the Gray Quail, and an Emperor Penguin.
This Opah or Moonfish shows another example of the outside and inside anatomy.
This lower jawbone of a Sperm whale is lengthy, you can imagine how massive the upper jaw must be according to the drawing on display.
Here is a preserved Humpback whale fetus, about the size of a football.
Edgar Allen Poe wrote "The Pit and the Pendulum". That's exactly what we have here. You see the pendulum wire swaying back and forth and a pit going down to the 2nd floor below.
This Foucault Pendulum swings in the same plane guided by its hardware attached to the roof, and is kept in motion with an electromagnet. The floor, people observing, and earth's surface slowly rotate beneath it. One rotation every 44 1/2 hours.
Here's a researcher's journal documenting rattle snakes that were caught.
Plants and flowers are displayed on the upper level of the museum.
Also, there are books which tell the history of serpents and dragons; and another how lions are related to Chimera.
The walls show strange combinations of hybrid beasts like a hydra, a dragon serpent; most are based on snakes perhaps because we fear them.
This bejeweled egg houses a replica of Balboa Park's carousel. Each of the 56 animals are hand-carved. It took 18 years to create and even has a music box in the base.
The open atrium provides a good view of all levels of the Natural History Museum.
You also have a top-down view of the Moreton Bay Fig tree to the museum's north. Let's take a closer look.
This tree was planted over 100 years ago for the Panama-California Exposition in 1915. Moreton Bay Fig trees have a life span of over 150 years. That means this one will still exist in the year 2065 and beyond. It's one of the largest in California, exceeding 70 feet in height, its canopy reaches 125 feet in width,
and its trunk is 16 feet in diameter. Buttress roots running along the ground give it support, and deeper stabilizing roots are anchored underground extending past the canopy. Aerial roots that hang down from branches absorb water and nutrients while providing additional stability.
Looks like this squirrel found a good place to live.
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