Tila’s Travel’s: The Whiteside Museum of Natural History

SEYMOUR, Texas (KAUZ) -This week for Tila’s Travels, we took a trip back in time at the Whiteside Museum of Natural History in Seymour, Texas. Located about 52 miles from Wichita Falls. Here I learned everything that I thought I knew about dinosaurs was wrong...

“[So] It is not a mammal, it’s not a reptile, we can’t call it that. The technical name for it is a non-mammalian synapsid,”said Museum Director Chris Flis.

The Whiteside Museum is home to Dimetrodon and so many other cool creatures. Large animals roamed around right here in Texas.

“If you go to a museum anywhere in the world it’s a 99 percent chance this is where they came from Seymour, Baylor County. This is where they all come from,” Flis said.

This museum connects the dots between animals of the past and animals of the present. It challenges you to do some critical thinking and maybe even unlearn some things.

So, just to be clear these are not dinosaurs?

“So, the things that you consider dinosaurs are not going to show up for another 60 million years so where we are digging the fossils are 290 million years old. 60 million years older than a t-rex,” Flis said.

There are even some live ones. And if that doesn’t make you want to gas up the car, they have a lab where they take you behind to scenes and let you get real up close and personal with their latest finds.

We stopped by at a fantastic time... to get an exclusive look at an exceedingly rare find.

“Not very many Samoria skeleton have been discovered so we really don’t know a lot about them. So, the fact that we found like eight of them in one block is exciting. And once we uncover more of what in here it will answer a lot of questions that scientist does not know about Simoni so it’s important,” said Assistant Director Holly Simmon.

These findings tell us so much about what it took to survive millions of years ago.

“Without them, we would not be where we are today. We can thank them for being able to walk on land and live outside of the water,” Flis said.

“So, you guys are amazing cause when I look, I see a pile of rocks.”

“You have to train your eyes really hard,” said Simmon

This small-town museum brings a Metroplex-size attraction each time the door opens. It is open each day except for Monday and just 5 dollars for children and 7 for adults. This year they are even working on an expansion project... they have seen a few more guests during the pandemic.

For more info check out their website.

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