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Hey, everyone, and welcome to the blog! I hope you all are doing well, and that the semester is off to a great start. I’m taking the time to not only stay on top of my schoolwork, but to enjoy life because really, it can be too short.

Don’t believe me? Ask the dinosaurs.

The last time I went to the Peabody Museum at Yale was when I was young enough to complain that my feet hurt to my parents, and that multicolored leggings from Justice made me the *It* girl (this was a fatal lapse in judgement, but I digress).

After getting $15 of my hard-earned student wage stolen by a City of New Haven parking meter, the adventure began. To provide some background, the Peabody was opened originally in 1876 to store the ever-growing collection of skeletons, fossils, and other archaeological finds obtained by O.C. Marshall – the first U.S. Professor in Paleontology (“Our History | Yale Peabody Museum”). Since then, the museum has been continuously remodeled, and was recently re-opened following construction that started in 2020, transforming the Peabody into a museum of the 21st-century. If it’s any more motivation to come here (aside from some good ol’ fashioned education), admission is free for all.

So, embrace your inner nerd, text your friends, and pack a lunch: it’s dinosaur time.

See, I don’t think there are any words to describe the joy I felt walking into a room dominated by the vast, fossilized skeleton of the Peabody brachiosaurus. Saying that it’s “big” would be an understatement. According to Elizabeth Hilfrank in her article “Brachiosaurus,” these dinos could grow more than 80 feet long and weighed more than 28 tons (about four African elephants!) (Hilfrank). Another key fact about the Brachiosaurus is that they are herbivores, meaning that they were exclusively plant-eating. Braciosaurus is also part of the Sauropod family, which included dinosaurs with long tails, necks, and four legs (Hilfrank). Even though these dinosaurs are considered to be gentle giants, that’s not to say they didn’t have ways to protect themselves from predators local to the Jurassic Period.

But that’s not even the best part.

Boyfriend, turning around with no girlfriend in sight: “Oh no.”

I will admit that I have a horrible habit of wandering, but, hey, I make up for it with my great sense of adventure. I had found my favorite dinosaur of all time: the stegosaurus. This is another herbivore, featuring four legs and a beautiful display of armor-like plates lining its back, this dinosaur was a lot more capable in the defense department. While brachiosaurus had a large size advantage compared to most carnivores, stegosauruses used their spiny tail to fight back predators. Think about a really, really big cow waving a stick with four machetes on it. At you. Angrily. With vengeance.

Yeah, I’d be running too.

Leaving the dinosaurs, we went on to explore the other rooms of the museum. Walls were decorated with intricate hieroglyphics, minerals, crystals, stones, and cases were filled with the first light bulbs, amulets, delicately-carved jewelry of all metals. Turning the corner into the living lab was a glass tank of butterflies.

Living, flying butterflies.

Of course, there were terrariums with poisonous frogs, other tanks with snakes, lizards (so adorable, very sleepy lizards), fish native to Connecticut, and plenty of taxidermy to display the vastness of the natural world, but the butterflies were by far one of my favorite things there.

I think that in the future, I would definitely bring my sketchbook because the museum truly does offer a great opportunity to study different shapes and anatomy, and drawing is something I love very dearly. For those who are new to the area, you can find the Peabody Museum at 170 Whitney Ave, New Haven, with plenty of parking in the area. If you’re looking for a bite to eat, may I (humbly) recommend:

• Olmo Bagelry (the BEST bagels ever)
• Koffee? → a local coffeeshop with plenty of options to support your caffeine and snacky needs
• Steamed (Chinese) → fantastic Chinese food, with really great scallion cakes
• Whale Boba Tea → clean, organized, and have plant-milk options for my non-dairy people out there like me :)

I hope this blog has been a fun little read for you guys – it definitely was for me! Please stay warm, eat something you love, and who knows?

Maybe go see a dinosaur or two.

With peace, love, and peanut butter, your friend,

Beatrice

Hilfrank, Elizabeth. “Brachiosaurus.” Animals, 27 Feb. 2014, . Accessed 29 Jan. 2025.

“Our History | Yale Peabody Museum.” Peabody.yale.edu, . Accessed 29 Jan. 2025.