Win a Guided Tour!

Support our Collections and Win a Chance at a Guided Tour!

Keep scrolling to learn how to enter this raffle.

We’re opening our doors at the Texas Vertebrate Paleontology Collections to welcome two lucky people inside our collections for an exclusive, behind-the-scenes tour. Three UT Austin professional paleontologists will walk you through our facility housing over two million fossils and modern bones.

We’ll show you our favorite fossils and the bones of your favorite animals on this personalized, hour-long tour. Explore our fossil prep lab, viewing discoveries that have never before been seen by the public. Walk past the hundreds of bones on display in our modern osteological collection, and ask all the questions you can think of! We welcome you to peruse the photo gallery of our collections at the bottom of this page.

A donation of $5 along with following and commenting on our Instagram is all it takes for a chance to win and support the prehistoric life in our collections.

Entries for this raffle will be accepted from February 27th, 2026 to March 6th, 2026.

How to Enter:

1. Follow us @texasvertpaleo on Instagram.

2. Donate at least $5 through this link.

Every $5 you donate to support conservation efforts in our collections is one entry.
If you sign up for a recurring monthly donation, your entry is doubled.
- EX: If you donate $25 you will receive 5 entries, but if you donate $25 on a monthly basis, you will receive 10 entries.

3. Comment on this pinned Giveaway pos t on our Instagram once you’re done.

If you want an extra entry, repost or share the linked post above to your story and tag us.

Terms and Conditions:

You must be 12 years or older to enter this raffle and tour the collections.
- All minors must be accompanied by a parent or guardian.
You must be able to commute to our facility located in North Austin, TX on your own.
- We will not pay for your travel costs.
The tour will be held the last week of March (March 23rd-March 27th).
All entries must be submitted by 11:59pm on March 6th to be considered.
The winner will be chosen and contacted by March 12th.
- Failure to confirm your tour may result in forfeiting your prize or rescheduling the tour.

What You Can Win:

The winner and one guest will receive an exclusive, behind-the-scenes tour of our collections for one hour during the week of March 23rd to March 27th. After being selected as the winner, you must confirm the time and date of your tour, along with the name and age of your guest. If you or your guest is a minor, you must be accompanied by a parent or guardian.

If there are any prehistoric or modern animals you would particularly like to see during your visit, you may send your request with your confirmation. You will then receive the necessary details for visiting the Texas Vertebrate Paleontology Collections.

Your Tour Guides:

Three professional UT Austin paleontologists will walk you through our collections:

Dr. John Moretti
UT Austin Jackson School of Geosciences Alum & Expert on Ice-Age Mammals

Read more about John here.

John is a paleontologist studying Quaternary vertebrate dynamics in southwestern North America and his research combines traditional morphological analysis with advanced, multidisciplinary tools (e.g., aDNA, U-Th, ¹⁴C) to glean fresh insights into the origins of extant biodiversity. John explores caves to obtain new evidence of how animal communities change over time and how changes in the past led to the biodiversity that exists around us today.

John holds a B.A. in Anthropology and an M.S. in Interdisciplinary Studies from Texas Tech University and recently completed his Ph.D. work at The University of Texas at Austin. He has produced or contributed to 12 scholarly publications, regularly presents at major conferences, and maintains an active science communication/outreach program in central Texas, where he is based.

Erika Tandy
Paleo-Artist, Long-Time Volunteer & Fossil Preparator

Read more about Erika here.

Erika is a long-term volunteer fossil preparator at our Vertebrate Paleontology Lab. She does a bit of everything: repairing fossils, fossil and modern preparation, making storage cradles, molding and casting, painting casts, carpentry, troubleshooting the field vehicles, repairing things and keeping the lab clean.

Erika attended Rochester Institute of Technology and received a BFA in Illustration and a minor in English Literature in 1994. She has held a lifelong interest in the biological sciences and has taken classes in skeletal morphology, geology, paleontology and forensics. Erika’s interests have informed her art which often features skeletons, and she now focuses her talents on realistic fossil cast painting.

J. Chris Sagebiel
UT Austin Jackson School of Geosciences Alum & Collections Manager at the Texas Vertebrate Paleontology Collections

Read more about Chris here.

Chris was born in Seguin, Texas and raised in Rockdale, Texas. After completing a degree at UT Austin’s Jackson School of Geosciences, he studied Genetics, Genomics, Bioinformatics at UC Riverside. Chris is a former curator of geology for the San Bernardino County Museum, where he identified one quarter of a million fossils from southern California’s Diamond Valley Lake reservoir. He once hoisted the skull of the famous Eocene primate, Rooneyia on the stage of the Paramount Theater in Austin.

More recently, Chris helped to bring the gigantic pterosaur Quetzalcoatlus to life in 2021 with our Society of Vertebrate Paelontology memoir. At home, he has two kids and one dog, and one dog that is part of the osteology collection.