Sugar Gliders, Mini-Mammals, and Big Teeth, Oh My

ON ALL FOURS: The walking whale is one of many extinct mammals on display at the American Museum of Natural History.
(Photo: Michele Wilson)

Typically, I’m skeptical of superlatives—the biggest, smallest, most amazing, etc. But the new “Extreme Mammals” exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History (whose name just cries for multiple exclamation points, doesn’t it?) actually doesn’t disappoint.

The smallest mammal ever—the itty-bitty, extinct Batonoides vanhouteni, reminiscent of a miniature mole and weighing less than a dollar bill—and the extinct, elephant-like Indricotherium—the largest land-walking mammal, dwarfed only by the massive blue whale—crowd the exhibit’s entrance.

Winding through the showroom, you bump into models of a walking whale (a sort of alligator-whale-shark hybrid); the caramel-colored, horse-like Machrauchenia patagonia, which inhabited South America hundreds of thousands of years ago; even a glypotodont’s armadillo-like shell the size of a boulder, which smaller—and luckier—guests can crawl through.

HOLY SHELL: Lucky visitors get to crawl through this natural armor of the glyptodont. (Photo: Michele Wilson)

As impressive as the stuffed animals were, two parts of “Extreme Mammals” left me in awe: the sugar gliders, the only live mammals in the exhibit, with big, pleading eyes the size of nickels (more about sugar gliders in this Friday’s video blog post); and the posters of newly discovered mammals, some as recently as 2005.

We know about 5,400 mammals, according to AMNH president Ellen V. Futter. But, she said during a press briefing, “we’re still discovering new members of the clan. Some are pretty wild and weird. Some deserve special attention, what they can teach us.”

John Flynn, the exhibit’s curator, can’t wait to learn more from these animals. “Extinct mammals have everything that dinosaurs do and a whole lot more,” he joked at the same press briefing. But on a more serious note, he added, in the exhibit, “you will confront your humanity, but you will also encounter your deep mammal-ness.”

Check back on Friday for a video about the exhibit, where you can learn more about the sugar gliders and several of the extinct mammals on display.

Exhibit info
Where: American Museum of Natural History
Address: Central Park West and 79th Street, New York City
When: May 16, 2009 through Jan. 3, 2010
Admission: $24 for adults, $18 for students and seniors, $14 for children ages 2-12. Note: Admission is by ticketed, timed entry only.
More information: American Museum of Natural History web site