Natural history museums with live animals

This is the same museum you mentioned in my other thread about natural history museum dioramas, right?

That is a shame, do you know why they stopped having those collections ?

Sounds interesting, I'll check it out and see what they have.

 

Another place that I remember that could be thought of as a natural history museum is the now-closed Wildwalk At-Bristol. It was often advertised as the ecological branch of a large science facility.

My memories of it were that it went through all the different levels of animal evolution, starting with simple invertebrates and working its way through all the groups of vertebrate animals. A large part of the exhibit was a walkthrough rainforest display with free-flying birds and pools for tropical fish. The only mammals on display on my first visit was a tank of striped grass mice that on my next visit were replaced with African pygmy mice (this remains the only place I have ever seen the species). At least one source I found says there were at least 120 species, although I think that is an under-estimate as from memory the number of bird and reptile species were definitely higher on some of my visits.

Unfortunately, Wildwalk was one of several projects created by the Millennium Commission that failed to remain financially viable and it was closed in favour of preserving the main science centre (then called Explore At-Bristol, now called We The Curious). The Wildwalk area was eventually renovated into a Blue Reef Aquarium, which I visited in October 2016. It certainly was nowhere near as interesting as it was in its former iteration.

 

I like it when museums display native species, they usually fit well with the theming, for example Melbourne Museums 'forest secrets' gallery is a representation of the alpine regions of Victoria displaying species such as Yellow Tuffted Honeyeater, Satin Bowerbird, Eastern Whipbird, Southern Water Skink, Cunninghams Sking, Maquarie Perch, Red Browed Finch, Tawny Frogmouth (which you will never see in the enclosure), Wonga Pigeon, Buff Banded Rail, Pobblebonk Frog etc.

Interestingly enough one of my teachers used to work at the museum, mainly incorperated in education programs, he once told me a funny story of how it took close to an hour to entice the tawny frogmouth to come down from the treetops for an educational program.

Also @Onychorhynchus coronatus Museums Victoria do conservation work as well, habitat preservation, particularly in alpine and freshwater environments. They also work with the Maquarie Perch, Spotted Tree Frog, Growling Grass Frog (southern bell frog) and Southern Water Skink.

 

It is quite a shame that this place closed down as from what you described it sounds like a place that had quite a promising education potential in terms of teaching and raising awareness about broader ecosystem concepts and biodiversity.

Always an uphill challenge to make these kind of concepts financially viable though.

 

Yes, I really think the focus on native species / biodiversity is a winning concept too.

It sounds like an awesome museum indeed and it seems to have a strong focus on showcasing avian biodiversity and I'm really glad to hear that they are involved in ecosystem conservation work and management.

Lol ! I can imagine it, I don't know tawny frogmouths well but something about their appearance suggests that they look like they could be very stubborn or evasive birds.

 

Horseshoe Crabs are common in US collections.

Yes it is! I'm not sure what happened to the arachnid and amphibian collections.

Are you planning a trip to Chicago?

 

Well it makes sense as I know that you have a species native to the Atlantic coast of the USA.

Shame to hear about that, I wonder why they closed that down.

No, unfortunatley not for the forseeable future (though I would love to specifically to see the field museum), I meant to check it out in the zoochat gallery or online.

 

Very interesting !

Is there an entry of this museum in the zoochat gallery that I can check out ?

It would be really interesting to see the design work of @Zooplantman.

 

I don't see a gallery for it. Maybe one of our Ohioan Zoochatters can fix that.

Here is the website: Perkins Wildlife Center & Woods Garden | Cleveland Museum of Natural History

 

From the website it seems like it is a really nice little thematic natural history museum / zoo with a really great collection of North American mammals and birds. Interesting to see that they have snowshow hares too !

 

Sorry, I can't remember. I went with some relatives and didn't spend as much time there as I would have liked to. The most unusual exhibit in the museum is a drum that includes skin from a soldier.

 

Bizarre exhibit

 

From google images it appears that the natural history museum in Nantes has quite a decent collection of venomous snakes like rattlesnakes, sand vipers and pit vipers which is pretty cool.

 

I've just checked (Human Drum at Rennes - Beachcombing's Bizarre History Blog). The human drum has been moved from Nantes to Rennes

 

I hope there isn't a curse attached to it

 

In US natural history museums, there is often one or more traveling/changing exhibit galleries. These are relatively common in public aquaria as well, and it isn't uncommon for them to feature live animal displays of reptiles, amphibians, fish, or invertebrates. I even remember seeing one traveling exhibit on bioluminescence that included Flashlight Fish. Clyde Peeling's Reptileland has a whole series that they rent out and I think I've seen most of them over the years at one museum or another: Home | Peeling Productions. I wish more zoos would make space for this sort of traveling gallery because regular exhibits rarely present such focused topics.

 

That is interesting and particularly the exhibition you mention on bioluminescence (what a fascinating topic for an exhibition at a natural history museum).

I've seen the same in other parts of the world, for example in Mexico there was a temporary exhibition on venomous snakes with live animals (puff adders, rattle snakes, coral snakes, Gaboon vipers etc) that ended up staying for a couple of years at the natural history museum in mexico city.

 

A bad example of this practice is at the AMNH where they have pretty much closed off the famous Whitney Hall of Oceanic Birds in favor of a butterfly conservatory.
Inside the American Museum of Natural History’s Hidden Masterpiece—The Appendix

 

Very tiny

But I do remember the Rhode Island Museum of Natural History has a small exhibit for honeybees.

 

Bees, ants and social insects make for really good live exhibits in natural history museums in my opinion.