The Georgia Museum of Natural History is now a little easier to find.
Many people don’t even know the museum exists, much less how to find it on the University of Georgia campus, even though its constantly growing collections now number more than 6 million specimens.
Most of the museum’s holdings are stored off the main UGA campus in an Atlanta Highway warehouse, but some are on public display in a small gallery space in the museum’s headquarters, hidden near the UGA steam plant at the intersection of Cedar Drive and East Campus Road.
But last week, workers from UGA’s Physical Plant hung two large fiberglass models from the museum’s outside brick walls — a big white shark and an orca, or killer whale — which now mark the museum’s entrance.
“We put them up there to advertise the presence of the museum,” said museum director Bud Freeman. “I think it’s going to generate interest, and that’s what we’re after.”
The two models once were part of a museum in the state Capitol building, but a few years ago, state officials shut down the natural history section of that museum to concentrate on the political and historical exhibits. The models of the shark and whale have been in storage at UGA since, but recently the museum commissioned a taxidermist to spiff up the models, repainting them and coating them with clear preservative.
Both are females; you can tell the killer whale is female because it’s got relatively small fins, Freeman said.
The museum can show off only a tiny fraction of its collections at any one time. On display now is “Leopards, Hyenas and Bears — Oh My,” an exhibit on animal predators that has been a hit with visiting school groups.
But the museum’s collections are vastly larger, including thousands of animal pelts and skeletons — even a large fungi collection. Its more than 1.5 million insects include 20,000 weevils and thousands of butterflies from all over the world, not just Georgia. Its many stuffed and mounted animals include an extinct ivory-billed woodpecker, bears and many others.
And it’s constantly getting new material. Recently, Freeman showed off some petrified dinosaur bones, hefting a hadrosaur tibia that dates back about 78 million years.
The bones were a gift from Athens Academy science teacher Jack Kridler, he said. One day, Freeman hopes to be able to show off more of the museum’s collections, which include more than 100 skeletons of whales and other marine mammals. But that’s years in the future, when donors might provide the money to build a proper museum with display space.
But even now, the museum is open to the public from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays and noon to 3 p.m. Saturdays.