Opened in 1860, is a museum featuring the collection of stuffed animals world’s largest (2.5 million pieces). Closed in 1998 for over 10 years, the museum underwent a major renovation and almost everything is new today. The museum now has 3000 m2 of modern exhibition halls, but however great the space is clear that only a small part of your fund (we’re talking less than 1%) of stuffed animals are exposed to the public, although it say that this is a great selection. Only at the level of ornithology, for example, we can see 4,500 specimens of birds in temperate zones and other regions of the planet.

Photography by www.dailymail.co.uk

Natural History Museum in Toulouse is large, and we can take an entire morning along it. We offer a permanent exhibition of 2,500 stuffed animals in an ongoing series of showcases. Actually, the dissection work is excellent: the mouth of a hippo moistened seems just out of the river, we will see bison, fish of all kinds, tigers, etc.. All animals shown expressive, with poses that make moving attention. As this part of the exhibition is not required to be accompanied by too many explanations, sure we all enjoy to the fullest.

Nothing more to enter the museum, visitors are greeted by the reconstruction of a skeleton Quetzalcoatlus, the largest known flying reptile (more than twelve meter wingspan).

But perhaps it is a stunning Asian elephant stuffed (which is a speck of turning 100 years old) who gets all the looks, and is one of the jewels of the museum. They assured us that the elephant’s birthday party will be quite soundly. It is the most recognized image of the museum for the inhabitants of Toulouse, as it always has been exhibited in major rooms and has been seen for many generations, which are particularly proud of the perfection that was dissected by renowned local scientists.

Wall Skeleton:
 
This is another jewel of the museum. It consists of a spectacular curved glass wall several hundred meters, and that on the outside faces the Botanical Garden Toulouse. On the wall we can see about 100 animal skeletons. All are original and are placed in positions of movement very reliable, and some of them even make hunting scenes, for a gazelle being bitten by a leopard.

Opened in mid 2010, the mounting of the wall of the skeleton took no less than four years, and the result is impressive. We have since chimps climbing trees for birds diving into the water in search of food, crocodiles and hippos swimming and even a scene of a man riding a horse. On the roof, a giant whale 800 kg and 16 meters watches the other skeletons. This whole area of exposure can be seen from outside the museum, to be a glass wall. Can be viewed from a walkway in the botanical garden, which is also part of the Natural History Museum in Toulouse, as we said, and after dark all the lights transparent wall stamped offering a truly original and beautiful.

The museum’s director assured us that no other museum in the world that offers such a way to expose animal skeletons. As a curiosity, the placement of all these skeletons in their position of the wall was carried out by a dental surgeon, who was assembling bone after bone with lots of patience.

Photography by www.foureyesup.com

Exhibition Man and Earth:

Following the permanent exhibition, we have sections devoted to the formation of Earth, where we see a very entertaining video on the formation of Pangea and its subsequent disintegration to form the present continents, a process of more than 700 million years (which still.) We can also tell us about plate tectonics, and we have a small section where we show the effects of an earthquake in the region of Midi-pyrene mid-twentieth century, and caused extensive damage in some villages in the area . Right there we have a small simulation of the tremors that could feel when experiencing the earthquake, we can put on a platform facing a video where we see an actual recording of the interior of a house hit by the action of the earthquake and the ground begins imitating moving shocks caused by the earthquake, so that immersion in the experience is quite accomplished. Surely this is another point to the museum for children, and although not as spectacular as the recreation of the Japanese supermarket hit by an earthquake that is in the Natural History Museum in London, the truth is that it is also very accomplished and it’s fun.

Then we learn about the formation of life on Earth and different kinds of living things that have been populated since there was a minimum for survival. One of the most striking sections of this area is devoted entirely to dinosaurs, and we have several large skeletons of reptiles of the past. However, many of them are recreations, but one of the recent acquisitions of the museum is an authentic prehistoric Siberian bear quite large and very fierce looking.

Later, he speaks of the appearance of man on the evolutionary scale, and we see some of the tools that are serving in the Prehistory to begin to shape the environment to their needs. The final part of this tour is focused on ethnological aspects of human beings, and we can see costumes from ancient cultures (there is a shaman of Mongolia dress pretty impressive).

The future speaks about ecology and conservation of biodiversity:

Finally, we reached a room where we talk about the future, and how we must act now before the series of changes that humans are causing the Earth: we have a panel of numbers that are constantly changing, with figures real-time growth of deserts in the world, forest loss, etc. This is a pretty impressive panel that powerfully conveys the current need to work to correct this destructive trend and devouring human resources, and achieve a more sustainable world for our children.

Practical Info Natural History Museum in Toulouse:

Open: 10.00 to 18.00.
Closed: Mondays, 1 January, 1 May and 25 December.
Prices: Normal fee: € 6 Reduced admission: 4 €. Children under 6: free.
Rate «plus»: 9 € (with temporary exhibitions and events).
Free first Sunday of the month.

We encourage you to visit the Natural History Museum in Toulouse! I hope you have found sufficient grounds now.