On July 12, the Indiana Dinosaur Museum will be celebrating its two year anniversary. This past February, we decided to check the place out!
We were given a Dig Deeper tour by Molly, a manager at the museum, but before the tour she shared some insight about the museum.
Behind the scenes, Molly shared her perspective and why she loves her job as manager for the museum. One aspect she highlighted was the guests.
“The dinosaur kids, which I lovingly refer to them because they know more than we could ever know. At the age of six, and they know how to say all of the words correctly, and you sit there, and you learn fun facts about dinosaurs that you thought you already knew, and you had no idea it is one of the best parts to be able to interact with,” she said.
The Indiana Dinosaur Museum relies on outside support to stay running.
“As of right now, the only Museum that we are in contact with consistently is the Studebaker Museum. We have a little bit of a partnership with them that if you buy your ticket or you go to the Studebaker Museum, you get a little bit of a discount. It’s not a huge one, but it can happen where you come here from the Studebaker, and you get a little bit of a discount to enjoy the dinosaur Museum,” Molly said.
The tour starts with a viewing (voiced by David Attenborough) of the owner Mark Tarner’s journey of doing paleontology and digs throughout the years. Afterwards, a garage door opens to reveal an Apatosaurus.
The museum had displays about evolution and showed fossils of plants and dinosaurs. Dinosaurs from various environments were featured, including terrestrial, aquatic and avian species.
During the tour, you can go dig up your fossil in the U-DIG Fossil Area. Right outside this area was a playbox where changing the sand changed the scenery from the projector and a digging box that had shark teeth in it. Visitors can also see the paleontologists work in the lab.
Molly had shared that the U-DIG was initially much more popular than the museum expected it to be.
“They were not expecting how many people love the U-DIG where they get to dig up their own fossils and take them home. It was unexpected how many people that wanted to include that on their field trips,” she said. “So, we actually made that an addition into our field trips as almost a normal thing. It is now an extra five dollars for the students to come in, whereas when you normally come in, it’s at ten dollars, so we have included that on a lot of our field trips.”
Some of the dinosaur fossils include skin of a Cretaceous dinosaur and a duckbill that will be named after Julie Tarner, Mark’s spouse who co-founded the museum with him.
Live tortoises, lizards and snakes are also on display, and visitors can also see the incubation room for the museum’s chickens.
The museum also has a room dedicated to Jurassic Park. Collected by Don Szczodrowski, the items here were used in the movies and get rotated out on a semi-regular basis.
The exit of the museum lands you in a gift shop featuring mystery fossil bags, toys, shirts and more.
After checking out the museum, we decided to feed the goats. Food can be purchased at the check in desk and the goats are found at the front of the building. They were super cute!
We also checked out the bison. The walk to them probably felt longer than it was due to the cold. Once we reached the viewing balcony, we were able to see the bison. The trail where you can see the bison is free alongside the sledding hill.
The Dig Deeper Tour costs $40 for adults, and regular admission is $23 for South Bend residents and college students or $25 for other adults. The Indiana Dinosaur Museum is located on Lincolnway, about a 20-minute drive from the IU South Bend campus.
To learn more about the museum or purchase tickets, visit indianadinosaurmuseum.org or check out their Instagram @indanadinomuseum.
