An International Treasure | Return to the Panhandle
Preparing the Exhibit
Preserved under layers of sediment cascading off the Little Badland formations, the dueling titans were discovered in the summer of 1962.
"We don't know exactly why they fell down, but it seems almost as if fate conspired against these two," said Mike Voorhies, vertebrate paleontologist at the University of Nebraska—Lincoln. "They really suffered some bad luck.
"In spring 2006, the mammoths returned to the Panhandle in a new "Clash of the Titans" exhibit at the Trailside Museum in Fort Robinson State Park near Crawford. The fossils had been at UNL since they were found, with the University of Nebraska State Museum recently resurrecting a plan to put the one-of-a-kind find into a proper exhibit.
Museum preparators Greg Brown, Rob Skolnick and Ellen Stepleton prepared the fossil for the exhibit. And, according to Mark Harris, associate director of the museum, the "Clash of the Titans" exhibit was initially a work in progress, allowing Trailside visitors to watch it progress toward a simulated dig site.
Visitors are able to walk around the exhibit and see these mammoths more or less as they were found in 1962. It is very dramatic, seeing these giant mammoths who died fighting each other.
