Museum of Osteology, Natural history museum in Oklahoma City, United States
The Museum of Osteology is a private museum in Oklahoma City displaying over 450 skeletons of animal species from around the world, covering all five vertebrate classes. In the main hall, a humpback whale skeleton hangs above the floor, with a broad-snouted skull beside it and a quadruped mount on a black frame below; glass cases line the back wall. Specimens are cleaned next door at Skulls Unlimited using dermestid beetles before articulation.
Jay Villemarette, founder of Skulls Unlimited International, built the museum next to his company's offices and processing facilities; construction began in 2004 and it opened on October 1, 2010. A second location opened in Orlando, Florida, in 2015 and closed in 2020, when its collections were combined with Oklahoma City's.
School groups and families visit to observe how different animals are structured from the inside, comparing skeletons across the animal kingdom. People move through the exhibits studying bone arrangements in familiar species and exotic ones alike, learning how anatomy shapes the way creatures live.
The museum welcomes visitors throughout the week with varying hours depending on the day, making it easy to plan a visit. Most exhibits are straightforward to explore and accessible for visitors of different ages and physical abilities.
The humpback whale skeleton hanging from the ceiling washed ashore in 2003, was buried for two years, then cleaned by Skulls Unlimited; it appeared on an episode of Mike Rowe's Dirty Jobs titled "Skull Cleaner". The museum also holds the largest private cetacean skeleton collection, with 46 species of whales, dolphins and porpoises.
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