Visit to the National History Museum, London, UK
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| Natural History Museum, London |
Once affiliated with the British
Museum for much of its history, the National History Museum now stands on its
own as the premier museum of science. With over 70 million objects hailing from
the fields of botany, entomology, mineralogy, palaeontology, and zoology, the
museum is also an illustrious center for research, where scientists seek to
analyze these specimens in their quest to unlock the mysteries of the tree of
life. The museum is organized into four different zones that make exploring the
museum that much easier for you. The four zones are the blue zone, where you
will find the museum's vast exhibits on dinosaurs, mammals, and human biology,
among other things; the green zone which features primates, ecology, birds, and
minerals; the red zone where you can learn all about the earth and the way in
which its landscape is forever changing; and lastly the orange zone, which is
home to the Darwin Center and the Cocoon exhibit, where you will learn all
about taxonomy and the science behind this field of work.
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| Diplodocus, plant eating dinosaur |
The central hall of the museum
houses the massive cast of the diplodocus. A plant-eating dinosaur that
lived 150 million years ago, the diplodocus is one of the longest land
animals to have ever lived: from the tip of its tail to its head it measures
over 26 meters long! The giant diplodocus cast prepares you for the
museum's impressiveness, especially its dinosaur exhibitions. However, before
you make your way to the dinosaur exhibitions you should check out some of the
specimens in the central hall. Most notably, the central hall houses the only
complete Wooly Mammoth skull ever found in Britain, which was discovered in
1864 only 18 km from the museum's present site. If you head left from the
central hall you will reach the dinosaur exhibitions. Here you can see many
casts of different types of dinosaurs, including the Cammarasaurus, a
plant-eater with pillar like legs and a huge backbone and small tail, and the Coelophysis,
one of the earliest known dinosaurs and a small meat-eater whose last meal (a
smaller coelophysis) is still preserved within its ribcage. As you walk along
the catwalk above the exhibition, you will be treated to more casts of
dinosaurs hanging from the ceiling and even robotic representations of the dinosaur.
At the end of the catwalk is a section devoted to the Tyrannosaurus, one
of the most fearsome dinosaurs in history. Here you will learn some interesting
facts about the T-Rex, such as that it was one of the last dinosaurs to roam
the earth 65-67 million years ago and that scientists are still confused as to
whether it was a flesh-tearing killer or a bone crunching stomper. One fun fact
is that the T-Rex was even longer and taller than a double-decker bus! As you
enter the ground floor of the exhibit, you will learn all about the dinosaurs:
the physiology of their bodies, their bone structure, the layout of the planet
during the height of the dinosaurs, and much more. The museum does a very good
job of relaying this information in the most enjoyable way possible. The
exhibit is colorful and the illustrations are great to look at, there are
numerous recreations (such as a dinosaur egg nest), and as with the rest of the
museum there are lots of interactive machines that allow you to get involved
with the exhibit itself.
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| Mammal Permanent Exhibit, NHM, London |
The remainder of the blue zone is
where you will spend a lot of your time, as there is just so much to see and
take in here. The mammal exhibit is incredibly informative and fascinating to
walk through. In addition to the various specimens of mammals that you can see,
you can also learn all about what makes a mammal a mammal and learn all about
the different types and classifications of mammals. For example, did you know
that 100 million years ago live-bearing mammals evolved into two distinct
groups: pouched mammals and placental mammals? Some specimens that you should
definitely pay a visit to are the cast of the extinct marsupial Diprotodon,
a massive herbivore that died out some 30,000 years ago, and of course the
life-size replica of the blue whale that sits right below a cast of its
skeleton. Also worth checking out is the museum's exhibition on human biology.
Here you will learn everything about what it means to be human, from conception
to death and everything in-between, including genetics, memory, sensory
perceptions and much more. This exhibit houses some of the museum's most
prominent interactive machines which include levers to see how the human body
moves and games to test your understanding of human memory.
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| Cocoon Permanent Exhibition, NHM, London |
Of the other three zones, the one
that you should visit just for its uniqueness alone is the orange zone. The
orange zone houses the Darwin Center and the famous Cocoon exhibition. You will
take an elevator to the upper floors where the museum houses over 20 million objects
from the natural world. These specimens are both for the museum's visitors and
for researchers who study these objects to find the links between everything in
life. The scientists, whom you can see working diligently across from you
during the exhibit, seek evidence for why there are so many kinds of living
things in the world and wish to know how the world's natural diversity is
changing. Compared to the rest of the museum, the Cocoon is designed in a
minimalist fashion, with white walls and small windowed exhibits that feature
the various types of specimens the museum houses.
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| Darwin, Natural History Museum, London |
The right side of the museum is home
to the green and red zones, which are also worth seeing if you have the time.
In the green zone, I would recommend taking the time to check out certain
galleries that really interest you. If you are interested in minerals you
should focus on the mineral exhibit and if you are fascinated by “creepy
crawlies” then you should spend your time in the arachnid galleries. There is
such a variety of galleries to see that if you try to rush through them all you
won’t be able to fully appreciate what you see, nor soak in all the information
the museum provides to you. I chose to focus on the bird galleries, where you
will see full-scale replicas of many different species of birds. In particular,
the Archaeopteryx is worth seeing. One of the first birds and one of only seven
known specimens, the bird is famous for possibly being a missing link between
modern birds and dinosaurs. For those with an interest in geology, the red zone
will be particularly interesting to you. Some exhibits of note here include the
Earth: Today and Tomorrow Gallery which focuses on how human consumption alters
the planet, and the Earth Lab, which features an amazing entrance surrounded by
marble sculptures where you take an escalator up into the planet.
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| Entrance Earth Lab Permanent Exhibition, NHM, London |
With so much to see and learn, the
National History Museum is one of the most famous museums in London and one
that deserves its own identity separate from the British Museum. It is a
supreme institution of science, where you can learn all about our world and the
creatures that inhabit it. And of course there are dinosaurs as well.
-By Phillip Storm, Arts
Correspondent, VisitMuseums.com
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