Visiting the Karlsruhe Natural History Museum

[Ludwigia]

I was in Karlsruhe in southwestern Germany over the weekend, mainly in order to watch my granddaughter in the main role of her class play, but we were also hoping to spend some time with her and her mother (my daughter of course) going for a brisk hike through the natural surroundings in the nearby countryside. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately for me , it started raining cats and dogs just when we were getting ready to set off and it obviously wasn't going to be letting up, so we were forced to make a quick change of plans and ended up going to the Natural History Museum. I can highly recommend it if anyone is in the area, since it was relatively recently renovated and has a good and varied number of exhibits on the usual subjects which are all well organized, descriptive and quite easy to follow. We started out together at the Climate and Habitats and Form and Function exhibits, which included some large aquariums with a plethora of colorful sea-going fauna and flora, and then we split up into interest groups, me making my way to the minerals and then onto the fossils. I'll let the photos tell the story mostly.

 

 

 

 

 

The minerals were arranged, as is usually the case, according to their group.

 

 

 

 

 

And the fossils according to their age in chronological order. It's unfortunately often difficult to get good photos due to the reflecting glass.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is an excellent exhibit of fauna from the Grube Messel, which is not far away from Karlsruhe and which I had recently visited.

 

 

 

 

And also a good one on 2 well-known sites not far from my home: Oehningen with its Andrias scheuchzeri, a giant salamander which was first thought to be a human being from the great flood, and Hoewenegg with its well preserved primeval horses.

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is also a special exhibit on Pterodactyls going on right now which is on the second floor in the extremely well-lit stairwell, so I was unfortunately not able to make many good photos due to the strong reflection.

 

 

 

 

So I just ended up taking some shots of the huge permanent exhibits hanging on the walls there.

 

Early Jurassic Fauna from Holzmaden.

 

Ceratites from the Triassic Muschelkalk.

 

Seirocrinus crinoids from Holzmaden.

 

Hope you enjoyed the tour.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ludwigia]

PS. This website told me it had a problem whilst uploading the above 2 photos, so I uploaded them again. Now I know what happened to them

[Shellseeker]

9 minutes ago, Ludwigia said:

I was in Karlsruhe in southwestern Germany over the weekend, mainly in order to watch my granddaughter in the main role of her class play, but we were also hoping to spend some time with her and her mother (my daughter of course) going for a brisk hike through the natural surroundings in the nearby countryside. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately for me , it started raining cats and dogs just when we were getting ready to set off and it obviously wasn't going to be letting up, so we were forced to make a quick change of plans and ended up going to the Natural History Museum. I can highly recommend it if anyone is in the area, since it was relatively recently renovated and has a good and varied number of exhibits on the usual subjects which are all well organized, descriptive and quite easy to follow. We started out together at the Climate and Habitats and Form and Function exhibits, which included some large aquariums with a plethora of colorful sea-going fauna and flora, and then we split up into interest groups, me making my way to the minerals and then onto the fossils. I'll let the photos tell the story mostly.

Thank you for taking us along. I only get to see this Museum thru your eyes, thru your camera.   It is one of the things I most enjoy about TFF along with photo journeys to other places in our world.  Jack

[Kane]

What a cool museum! I almost feel like I owe money for admission.  The fossils are fabulous, of course, but I do like that great snap you got of the octopus. 

[Ludwigia]

2 minutes ago, Kane said:

What a cool museum! I almost feel like I owe money for admission.  The fossils are fabulous, of course, but I do like that great snap you got of the octopus. 

 

Yeah me too. He just suddenly started dancing for us and had some great moves.

[rocket]

Great to see that the exhibition still exists and looks like 20 years ago... I worked as a researcher and project member in the Museum 20 years ago and really often took some views in the exhibition. Cool vertebrate fossils there!

[opalbug]

Thank you for the ride @Ludwigia

 

I visited Karlsruhe, West Germany in 1984 to watch "The Monsters of Rock" Concert.

 

I didn't know anything about fossils at the time.

 

 

[Ludwigia]

1 hour ago, opalbug said:

Thank you for the ride @Ludwigia

 

I visited Karlsruhe, West Germany in 1984 to watch "The Monsters of Rock" Concert.

 

I didn't know anything about fossils at the time.

 

 

At least you now know that some fossils can really be Monsters in Rock

[Yoda]

@Ludwigia

Some fantastic specimens

Especially the Pterodactyls 

Thanks for showing 

[Bobby Rico]

Greet museum,  great report.  I really like a museum with some good diormas.thank you Roger. 

 

Cheers Bobby