Hide Your Peanuts!

Elephants Will Be Taking Over Yale Peabody Museum

NEW HAVEN — Described as “nature’s great masterpiece,” the elephant is a subject of enduring fascination and interest to people of all ages. A spectacular exhibition featuring the world’s largest land animals, “Elephants!” opens this weekend at the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History.

The exhibition, which will remain on view until July 31, opens on Saturday, February 12. Stunning specimens and re-creations will be combined with DVD presentations, computer interactives, and other hands-on exhibits to tell the story of these remarkable animals from their early evolutionary history to today’s latest research on their complex social interactions.

Towering above visitors at a height of 13 feet will be a Hebior mammoth skeleton, the largest mammal ever to walk the North American continent. The skeleton in the Peabody exhibition was found with stone tools, and some of its bones show evidence of butchering.

Its close relative, the woolly mammoth (Mammuthus), is represented by a full-size model made with $24,000 worth of human hair. Exact in every detail, the model enables visitors to imagine what it would have been like to come face to face with this amazing animal that lived until 3,700 years ago.

Why the woolly mammoth went extinct is still debated, but many agree it is likely to be a combination of climate changes and hunting by humans.

The exhibition also includes some of the smallest elephants. These include the skeleton and model of a tiny dwarf elephant from Sicily that stood only three feet tall. The limited food sources of the island environment of these dwarf populations were largely responsible for this remarkable adaptation.

Another tiny elephant on exhibit is the pygmy mammoth from the Channel Islands off the coast of southern California. In adapting to their island environment they grew smaller, with full-grown adults standing only three to four feet tall.

There are only three species of elephant alive today: the Asian elephant, the African savannah elephant, and the African forest elephant. These are the only survivors of a group of mammals called the Proboscidea. There were once over 150 members in this group, some far larger than their modern relatives.

The largest living elephant, and overall the largest living land mammal, is the male African elephant, which can weigh 14,000 pounds and consume up to 600 pounds of food a day.

Female and young male elephants live together in herds led by a matriarch, typically the oldest and largest female. The social dynamics within the herd, and between different herds, is still poorly understood. Scientists are only beginning to recognize the diverse ways in which elephants communicate with each other, sometimes at distances of over a mile or more. “Elephants!” highlights ongoing research that explores the complexity of the social life and communications of these fascinating animals.

The exhibition concludes with an exploration of these extant species and how they are threatened with extinction because of hunting and the destruction of their habitats.

The Peabody Museum is open Monday through Saturday from 10 am to 5 pm and Sunday from noon to 5 pm.

Admission is $7 for adults, $6 for seniors, $5 for ages 3 to 18 and college students with ID, and free for ages 3 and under. Admission is free for all visitors every Thursday between 2 and 5 pm.

The museum is wheelchair accessible.

For additional information call the museum’s Infotape at 203-432-5050 or visit its website, www.Peabody.yale.edu.

Opening Weekend Activities

“Elephants!” will be open for public viewing as of 10 am Saturday, February 12.

Celebratory activities surrounding the exhibitions are planned for the following day.

From noon to 4 on Sunday, February 13, there will be crafts, games and other activities for all ages ongoing.

At 1 pm, David Reese will present “Pygmy Elephants and Friends in The Ancient Mediterranean: Facts and Myths.”

Mr Reese is a Peabody Museum curatorial affiliate in the division of anthropology.

He has spent much of his career as a faunal analyst studying the animals and animal fossils from the islands of Sicily, Cyprus and Crete, including pygmy elephants and giant rodents.

Admission to these events and Mr Reese’s program is included with paid museum admission.