In my previous post about the
Paris Museum of Natural History, I came down pretty hard on London's own NHM for their crappy dinosaur exhibition. Perhaps I was a bit too hard. Not that the NHM's dinosaur exhibit isn't crap, but the museum has a cartload of great stuff that can almost excuse that shortcoming. Here is a brief visit.
One of the most gruesomely fascinating objects in the museum was this Victorian cabinet full of dead hummingbirds of more than a dozen species.
Here is a close-up. Poor animals.
The whole scene looks a bit like a Hieromyus Bosch painting.
Collecting animals for science is one thing, but killing dozens of rare birds for some pansy-ass "bird arrangement" hobby is a whole other ball game.
Here are some of the other avian exhibits in the NHM. This is a rather angry-looking owl, of a species I cannot remember right now.
The porous, weight-reducing beak-horn of a
hornbill.
Another bird with very long tail feathers.
A
frigatebird, one of the most vicious, dastardly birds to ever fly over Earth's oceans.
More hornbills, with the spectacular beaks that earn them their name.
A
kiwi, one of the strangest birds on the planet.
Stranger still, here is a black-caped
bird of paradise. I really should've kept a record of these animals' scientific names.
This
etruscan shrew,
Suncus etruscus, is the smallest land mammal in the world. What an icon!
A rather parched looking bat.
Part of the mammals exhibit was literally like a walk-in version of
Cute Overload. Just look at this
silky anteater,
Cyclopes didactylus!
This
two toed sloth,
Choloepus hoffmanni, is a close relative of the silky anteater above.
An enigmatic
golden mole.
The
short-beaked echidna (
Tachyglossus sp.) reproduces by laying eggs. It belongs to the
monotremes, a group of mammals unique to Australia and New Guinea.
This, on the other hand, is a
desman, a swimming relative of the moles. All of these cute animals look alike, yet some of them are not as closely related to others as one might think.
Most of the larger mammals were displayed in a large hall, resplendant with many species of dolphins and whales "swimming" across the roof.
More cetaceans.
This poor panda (
Ailuropoda melanoleuca) died in the London Zoo and was donated to the NHM afterwards.
The skeleton of this baby chimp,
Pan troglodytes, looks remarkably like that of a human.
Moving on to the reptiles exhibit, I was confronted with dozens of weird skeletons. One of the most spectacular was that of this chameleon.
This komodo dragon (
Varanus komodoensis) looks very realistic.
Too realistic in fact, to be a taxidermied specimen. Look closer, and -surprise!- it turns out to be a plastic model, albeit a very detailed one. This fake approach is completely unlike the "what you see is what you get" reality of the Paris NHM.
At least the skeletons are real! This is a large snake of some sort. Look at all the ribs!
A mata mata,
Chelus fimbriatus.
A young gharial (
Gavialis gangeticus) and a young saltwater crocodile (
Crocodylus porosus). The adults of these species are the largest crocodylians in the world.
A giant crocodile, (
Crocodylus niloticus) and its skeleton.
What an awesome beast!
What about this? The skeleton of the World's largest amphibian, the giant japanese salamander. (
Andrias japonicus)
While most specimens in the fish section were fake models, one of them was the genuine thing. Behold the football-sized giant
anglerfish!
"Ugly" is just a word.
I really wonder how this animal looked like when it was alive.
Another pickled giant fish was this
coelacanth,
Latimeria chalumnae.
While I didn't like the way fake models were used to represent real animals, I couldn't help taking a photo of these meticulously crafted squid.
Especially amusing was this model of a
vampire squid,
Vampyroteuthis infernalis. It was a very accurate model, except for being three times its original size.
Some of the models looked like they came out of an eclectic Japanese design store. This is a benthic sea cucumber,
Scotoplanes globosa.
The dinosaur exhibit might be crap, but the NHM still has a spectacular selection exhibits on extinct animals, the best of which was this corridor lined with giant prehistoric marine reptiles of all sorts.
A true monster. This is a
Liopleurodon, from a group of swimming reptiles called the Pliosaurs. Observe the person in the photo for an idea of its scale.
The insane grin of a fossil
ichthyosaur, its sclerotic ring still carrying a powerful stare after 100+ million years of fossil imprisonment.
More ichthyosaurs.
Some ichthyosaurs were over three meters long. Some, were not much larger than a sea bass.
Two skeletons of teleosaurs, ancient crocodylians which were adapted for a life in the sea. I'd also seen their kind at the Paris NHM.
These dislocated jaws and evil, shattered grins belong to
mosasaurs, giant swimming lizards that lived in the time of the dinosaurs. I would gladly pay a large sum of money to have such a fossil embedded into my living-room wall.
This swan necked
plesiosaur is a close relative of the titanic
Liopleurodon shown above. How these gracefully weird animals swam and fed is still a matter of debate.
Numerous extinct mammals were also on exhibit. This famous skeleton belongs to
Megatherium americanum, the giant american ground sloth.
This strange animal, on the other hand, is one of the most mysterious fossils ever to have been found. Aptly named
Palaeoparadoxia, nothing of its affinities can be said, except that it was a mammal of some sort.
This rhino-sized
Diprotodon was a scaled-up relative of the marsupial wombat. It was one of the greatest herbivores in Australia, and was probably driven to extinction by the first humans to settle the continent.
It's our friend
Arsinoitherium again! I'd photographed another fossil of this awe-inspiring mammal back in my trip to the Paris NHM.
This armadillo-like
Glyptodon was larger than one of those Smart cars. Along with the
Diprotodon and
Megatherium mentioned above, it was possibly hunted to extinction by our bastard ancestors.
What looks like a mummified hippo is actually a mummified
Toxodon, straight from the pampas of South America. This gigantic herbivore belonged to
an order of herbivorous mammals that was unique to that continent.
Hello cousin. This haunting skull belongs to a
Cynognathus, a reptile-like mammal that lived more than 245 million years ago. It belonged to a group of transitional species that later gave rise to all mammals.
Finally, the gape of a 295-million-year-old amphibian named
Eryops.
There were many other wonders in the London NHM, but I think this little selection will be sufficient to prove that this museum is still a nice place to visit. Just avoid the crappy dinosaur exhibit and you will be fine.
In my previous post about the Paris Museum of Natural History, I came down pretty hard on London's own NHM for their crappy dinosaur exhibition. Perhaps I was a bit too hard. Not that the NHM's dinosaur exhibit isn't crap, but the museum has a cartload of great stuff that can almost excuse that shortcoming. Here is a brief visit.
One of the most gruesomely fascinating objects in the museum was this Victorian cabinet full of dead hummingbirds of more than a dozen species.
Here is a close-up. Poor animals.
The whole scene looks a bit like a Hieromyus Bosch painting.
Collecting animals for science is one thing, but killing dozens of rare birds for some pansy-ass "bird arrangement" hobby is a whole other ball game.
Here are some of the other avian exhibits in the NHM. This is a rather angry-looking owl, of a species I cannot remember right now.
The porous, weight-reducing beak-horn of a hornbill.
Another bird with very long tail feathers.
A frigatebird, one of the most vicious, dastardly birds to ever fly over Earth's oceans.
More hornbills, with the spectacular beaks that earn them their name.
A kiwi, one of the strangest birds on the planet.
Stranger still, here is a black-caped bird of paradise. I really should've kept a record of these animals' scientific names.
This etruscan shrew, Suncus etruscus, is the smallest land mammal in the world. What an icon!
A rather parched looking bat.
Part of the mammals exhibit was literally like a walk-in version of Cute Overload. Just look at this silky anteater, Cyclopes didactylus!
This two toed sloth, Choloepus hoffmanni, is a close relative of the silky anteater above.
An enigmatic golden mole.
The short-beaked echidna (Tachyglossus sp.) reproduces by laying eggs. It belongs to the monotremes, a group of mammals unique to Australia and New Guinea.
This, on the other hand, is a desman, a swimming relative of the moles. All of these cute animals look alike, yet some of them are not as closely related to others as one might think.
Most of the larger mammals were displayed in a large hall, resplendant with many species of dolphins and whales "swimming" across the roof.
More cetaceans.
This poor panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) died in the London Zoo and was donated to the NHM afterwards.
The skeleton of this baby chimp, Pan troglodytes, looks remarkably like that of a human.
Moving on to the reptiles exhibit, I was confronted with dozens of weird skeletons. One of the most spectacular was that of this chameleon.
This komodo dragon (Varanus komodoensis) looks very realistic. Too realistic in fact, to be a taxidermied specimen. Look closer, and -surprise!- it turns out to be a plastic model, albeit a very detailed one. This fake approach is completely unlike the "what you see is what you get" reality of the Paris NHM.
At least the skeletons are real! This is a large snake of some sort. Look at all the ribs!
A mata mata, Chelus fimbriatus.
A young gharial (Gavialis gangeticus) and a young saltwater crocodile (Crocodylus porosus). The adults of these species are the largest crocodylians in the world.
A giant crocodile, (Crocodylus niloticus) and its skeleton.
What an awesome beast!
What about this? The skeleton of the World's largest amphibian, the giant japanese salamander. (Andrias japonicus)
While most specimens in the fish section were fake models, one of them was the genuine thing. Behold the football-sized giant anglerfish!
"Ugly" is just a word.
I really wonder how this animal looked like when it was alive.
Another pickled giant fish was this coelacanth, Latimeria chalumnae.
While I didn't like the way fake models were used to represent real animals, I couldn't help taking a photo of these meticulously crafted squid.
Especially amusing was this model of a vampire squid, Vampyroteuthis infernalis. It was a very accurate model, except for being three times its original size.
Some of the models looked like they came out of an eclectic Japanese design store. This is a benthic sea cucumber, Scotoplanes globosa.
The dinosaur exhibit might be crap, but the NHM still has a spectacular selection exhibits on extinct animals, the best of which was this corridor lined with giant prehistoric marine reptiles of all sorts.
A true monster. This is a Liopleurodon, from a group of swimming reptiles called the Pliosaurs. Observe the person in the photo for an idea of its scale.
The insane grin of a fossil ichthyosaur, its sclerotic ring still carrying a powerful stare after 100+ million years of fossil imprisonment.
More ichthyosaurs.
Some ichthyosaurs were over three meters long. Some, were not much larger than a sea bass.
Two skeletons of teleosaurs, ancient crocodylians which were adapted for a life in the sea. I'd also seen their kind at the Paris NHM.
These dislocated jaws and evil, shattered grins belong to mosasaurs, giant swimming lizards that lived in the time of the dinosaurs. I would gladly pay a large sum of money to have such a fossil embedded into my living-room wall.
This swan necked plesiosaur is a close relative of the titanic Liopleurodon shown above. How these gracefully weird animals swam and fed is still a matter of debate.
Numerous extinct mammals were also on exhibit. This famous skeleton belongs to Megatherium americanum, the giant american ground sloth.
This strange animal, on the other hand, is one of the most mysterious fossils ever to have been found. Aptly named Palaeoparadoxia, nothing of its affinities can be said, except that it was a mammal of some sort.
This rhino-sized Diprotodon was a scaled-up relative of the marsupial wombat. It was one of the greatest herbivores in Australia, and was probably driven to extinction by the first humans to settle the continent.
It's our friend Arsinoitherium again! I'd photographed another fossil of this awe-inspiring mammal back in my trip to the Paris NHM.
This armadillo-like Glyptodon was larger than one of those Smart cars. Along with the Diprotodon and Megatherium mentioned above, it was possibly hunted to extinction by our bastard ancestors.
What looks like a mummified hippo is actually a mummified Toxodon, straight from the pampas of South America. This gigantic herbivore belonged to an order of herbivorous mammals that was unique to that continent.
Hello cousin. This haunting skull belongs to a Cynognathus, a reptile-like mammal that lived more than 245 million years ago. It belonged to a group of transitional species that later gave rise to all mammals.
Finally, the gape of a 295-million-year-old amphibian named Eryops.
There were many other wonders in the London NHM, but I think this little selection will be sufficient to prove that this museum is still a nice place to visit. Just avoid the crappy dinosaur exhibit and you will be fine.
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