The Piedmont Gallery explores the varied life supported by the streams, rivers and man-made reservoirs of South Carolina’s Piedmont region (“piedmont” is French for “foothills”). Many fish, such as bass, crappies and suckers, can be seen swimming in exhibits that display their natural habitats. Other exhibits demonstrate the science behind fly-fishing and give a peek into what South Carolina was like in prehistoric times, with a chance to find out what a saber-tooth tiger’s teeth and a giant ground sloth’s claws feel like.

Exhibit Fun Facts

Featured Animal: Warpaint Shiner
Fact: Shiners live in streams and pools. Their “shiny”, silver coloration allows them to be camouflaged by the sunlight that shimmers in the shallow water.
Location: Piedmont Shoals Exhibit

Featured Animal: Robust Redhorse
Fact: These fish, a type of sucker, were thought to be extinct for over one hundred years, but were recently rediscovered in the Piedmont streams of South Carolina and Georgia.
Location: Piedmont River Exhibit

Featured Animal: Greater Siren
Fact: Though they look like eels, sirens are amphibians that spend their entire lives in water. The frilly appendages near their legs are their gills.
Location: Shifting Shorelines Exhibit

Featured Animal: Megaladon Shark
Fact: It is thought the prehistoric sharks that produced these teeth were over 35 feet long, relatives of great whites and predators of whales. Today their teeth can be found all over coastal South Carolina.
Location: Shifting Shorelines Exhibit