NEWPORT NEWS

Virginia Living Museum

Take great animal photos (safely) from a deck

Participate in a new action exhibition:  Survival: Jamestown 2007

     It's all happening right now at the Virginia Living Museum

The Virginia Living Museum in Newport News is part native wildlife park and part science museum and aquarium. For years locals and visitors have quietly begun to discover this informative small museum where a  planetarium and abundant botanical specimens and wildlife provided a multi-disciplinary introduction to Virginia’s natural world.

But "small" is no longer the operative word. An extraordinary new museum building opened on March 28, 2004, and it is a world-class facility and a natural world in itself. According to the Museum press release, the exhibits "go from the upland coves of the Appalachian Mountains to the salty offshore waters of the Atlantic Ocean."

Visitors are  encouraged to touch and experience the interactive exhibits. Children gingerly reached or  out to touch the wiggling arms on the bottom of a giant horseshoe crab or tap the top of a skittering spider crab.  At other exhibits, there was a series of shelves covered by a sign with a question about the animal specimen inside. Flip the sign up and find the answer on the other side. In the box there is a bone, photography or specimen of the animal. We learned, for example, the differences between the mole and the vole. Moles are slow-crawling pudgy creatures that eat bugs as they tunnel underground. Voles are really tiny mice that are certainly not popular with gardeners; they scurry down mole tunnels and dine on roots of plants.

Young children particularly  enjoy the dinosaur exhibit that gives them a chance to place their hands on an authentic track made by a Kayentapus that roamed through Virginia over 210 million years ago.  These bipedal dinosaurs were 126 inches high and 10 ½ feet long.  A sample of their footprints is nine inches long.  These tracks were discovered by workers at the Culpeper Stone Company in a quarry near Stevensburg. 

But that's just the beginning. A two-story walk takes visitors into an Appalachian Cover with a waterfall. Then on to the Coastal Plain Gallery and a 30,000-gallon Noland Chesapeake Bay Aquarium for a view of huge sea creatures. A Virginia World of Darkness reveals animals that thrive in a world without light - including ghost crabs, moon jelly fish and flying squirrels.

      One of the most popular indoor areas on the walkway is the two-story glass songbird aviary.  These injured, abandoned and hand-raised birds have no fear of visitors, and it’s easy to get excellent close-up photographs of the colorful specimens.  You’ll see such elusive birds as cedar waxwings, summer tanagers and quail. Most of these birds can now be seen in the Cypress Swamp and Appalachian Cove.

      From the museum an elevated 3/4 mile boardwalk leads outside along Deer Park Lake and past the habitats of native water animals like river otters, raccoons and beavers.  A striking outdoor wetlands aviary gives you a chance to see glossy ibis, elegant herons and a variety of multi-hued ducks and other waterfowl.  The outdoor exhibits also include such woodland creatures as bobcats, deer, fox, opossum and skunk.  You also can get a close look at a pair of bald eagles. 

        We were even treated to an unexpected show right before the closing of the museum for the day. The red wolves are allowed to roam a wide open area during the day but are literally herded into a caged area at night. Museum workers and volunteers, clad in blue jeans, and "armed" like medieval nature knights with brooms and holding boards as shields tried to push the wolves back into their cage dens. The wolves were not anxious to go and ran in circles around the "knights." Finally the wolves wearied of the game and went back to their home den.

The planetarium is still located in the much smaller original museum building next door that is now being used primarily for classrooms and storage. But the planetarium continues to offer great presentations.  From June 12 until September 5, the program shows how to protect the wonders of the night for future generations.

The Virginia Living Museum is open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily from Memorial Day to Labor Day. Winter hours: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday and noon to 5 p.m. Sunday. Closed Thanksgiving Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and New Year's Day.

Admission: $10.50 adults, $7.50 children (ages 3-12). Planetarium admission, $3. Combination tickets are $12.50 adults, $9.50 children. Call (757) 595-1900 for more information. 

Directions:   From I-95 in the Richmond area, take I-64 east to Newport News.  Take Exit 258A, the J. Clyde Morris Boulevard and a sign will indicate the museum on your left at 524 J. Clyde Morris Boulevard. 

By Jane Ockershausen with additional reporting by Hal Gieseking

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