Sorry for any confusion regarding the 'Small Deer House' - I saw this media (small deer exhibit) and, somewhat ignorantly, assumed which that was the house's official name. I really appreciate all the brilliant information shared by members more familiar with Antwerp than myself on this thread. It has been a joy to read all the replies that this review has received.
As a late addition to this: the building in question is one of three adjoining stables that are colloquially known as the 'deer houses'. The stable that now houses the meerkats did house smaller deer like pudus until around 2008 and has been used for mongoose ever since. The two other stables housed Mantchurian sika deer until 2015, but they are now not in use anymore as the main deer paddock has been converted into the playground. Great reviews though! Always very interesting to read a review of a zoo that you're very used to by someone who is new to it.
Museum des Sciences Naturelles, Brussels I am very sorry that this was delayed. I have spent the previous two days travelling across South England without a car (train strikes are a growing issue here) to see as many family members as possible over Christmas. But it is time that I put my head down and write this up! When I was younger, I would frequently visit Crystal Palace Park, which was fairly local to me at the time, and I adored its imposing dinosaur sculptures. Constructed by Richard Owen using creationist visions of the ancient animals based on scarce remains, these statues are now laughably inaccurate, maintained for their historic value and famous around the world for their inaccuracy. They are depicted with equally sized forelimbs and hindlimbs, although we now know the former to be far more slender, and their hind limbs were out to the side similar to a modern lizard as opposed to directly underneath as we now know to be the case. Most famously of all, the Iguanodon's curious spike, which we now know was found on their fifth finger, was placed instead on their nose, as is the case in a rhinoceros. My father would accompany me on most of these trips, and he would regularly tell me the story of the Bernissart Iguanodons; how Belgian coal miners dug more than 300 metres underground and came across no less than 38 Iguanodons, complete enough that genuine research could be performed, and from that, accurate reconstructions could be built. Several mounts were then placed on display at a museum in Brussels, where they changed public understanding of dinosaurs forever. He ensured that, if we ever made it to Belgium, the Museum would be a priority. I wasn't quite sure whether or not I agreed with the idea - the day that I spent with the Iguanodons could have been spent at, say, Planckendael. However I am beyond glad that I played along, as the Museum was an unexpected gem and one of the highlights of my trip to Belgium. I will start of with the indisputable highlight - the Dinosaur Gallery. At 3,000 square metres, it is the largest in Europe, and of course, the Iguanodons are the highlight. 9 mounts are placed inside a large glass case that can be viewed from two stories and a tunnel through the centre; they are held in the now outdated 'kangaroo' position, their tails dragging along the ground - to adjust for this error, a more accurate quadrupedal mount has been placed just outside the case, impossible to miss and ensuring that all visiting members of the public acknowledge the accurate position. Underneath the case, several more casts have been arranged in as close as possible a position to how they were in fact found, while the walls are scattered with information about their origins. But Iguanodons are not all that the Gallery has to offer. There are several dinosaur species here that I had known about since childhood (from documentaries and encyclopedias), but never actually got the chance to see, some of which I was not even aware had complete mounts assembled. The highlight was a genuine and close to complete mount of Plateosaurus engelhardti, colloquially known as 'Ben.' I have always admired Plateosaurus, an animal theorised to be a primitive sauropod of sorts, but upon seeing it, I was somewhat surprised to see that its teeth resembled far more those of therapods than other sauropods, evidence of its likely omnivorous nature. Other highlights included a cast of Cryolophosaurus ellioti, and of the Sinosauropteryx prima skeleton that showed traces of colour, a juvenile Diplodocus carnegii and a six metre tall leg bone belonging to an unknown titanosaur. Casts of everything from Tyrannosaurus rex to Stegosaurus stenops were present, as were, rather excellently, several modern-day birds, to show the ties between birds and dinosaurs. Moving away from the Dinosaur Gallery, there is plenty else on offer. The first non-dinosaur attraction I saw was perhaps my favourite room of the whole Museum, the Mosasaur gallery. The centrepiece is a 13-metre long Hainosaurus bernardi skeleton, an enormous and very intimidating mount, somewhat fragmented (most notably missing a large portion of the tail), but all the same a true wonder to behold. There were several other fossils in the room, including one of a primitive legless snake, as evidence for the now disproved theory that mosasaurs were related to snakes, as well as a Komodo Dragon, as evidence for the more popular idea that they were instead related to monitor lizards. An unexpected highlight was preserved skin impressions of Tylosaurus, and the fins of a Mosasaurus hoffmani, the largest mosasaur. On that note, we made our way to the upper floor, where the Gallery of Evolution was located. This wonderful gallery has you snaking through time, starting with the Cambrian Explosion. Throughout childhood, the fauna of the Cambrian fascinated me more than any other, so seeing the fossils from that age, even if they are poorly preserved, was utterly amazing. The highlight was Anomalocaris canadensis, which may well be my favourite prehistoric animal of them all, but similarly exciting were Hallucigenia sparsa, Opabinia regalis and Pikaia gracilens. You are then led into the Devonian, where some of the most exciting offerings of the Age of Fish can be found, including the plated skull of a Dunkleosteus terrelli, one of the most intimidating specimens which I have ever seen. Meganeura monyi is the star of the Carboniferous, while the Permian has Eryops megacephalus. It is a wonderful set of species. The dinosaur selection then appears with the skull of a Camarasaurus grandis, and a large mount of a new species of Allosaurus. The individual is known as 'Arkhane,' but more research most be done before its new species can be named. It certainly appeared to be a fair bit larger than other allosaurs which I have seen, but I am unaware of the other taxonomic differences. The rest of the Mesozoic is represented mainly through marine reptiles, and the Tertiary by a terror bird (I sadly forgot to note the species) before you are presented with the animals of today. The highlight was the largest Nile Crocodile which I have ever seen (if only it were alive!) and a multitude of woodpeckers perched on the walls of a spherical structure in which educational talks take place. This leads into the Gallery of Modern Life, which is the museum's largest. On two levels, brilliant dioramas and a snaking pathway display an enormous variety of modern life, from Blue Whales to White-bellied Pangolin and from Bird-of-Paradise to Giant Armadillo. It is truly wonderful, excellently displayed with beautiful dioramas. It is clearly a more modern interpretation on the concept, a nice contrast to my local Horniman Museum, which is about as vintage as these things get, but the sheer breadth of the collection was quite extraordinary. By now, we were swiftly running out of time, as I severely underestimated just how time-consuming the Museum would be! As such, I somewhat skimmed the remaining galleries, which included '250 Years of Natural Sciences,' a timeline of the institution's two-and-a-half centuries featuring the skeleton of an American Mastodon and a few primitive whales as its obvious highlights. There was also 'BiodiverCITY,' covering the animals that inhabit Belgium's urban environments, and a new exhibition on light. I then returned to the Dinosaur Gallery to spend the last thirty minutes of the day, as visitors began to leave. There is certainly something quite special about having a room featuring the largest carnivore to walk the earth and a six metre tall leg bone all to yourself; both terrifying and tremendously fun. On that note, I departed the wonderful museum, which is definitely my second favourite natural history museum which I have ever seen behind London. It is a truly wonderful place, that I think deserves far more attention than it receives; I hope that this review will help with that.
