The Naturmuseum Senckenberg is a museum of
natural history, located in
Frankfurt am Main. It is the second-largest of its type in Germany. The museum contains a large and diverse collection of birds with 90,000 bird skins, 5,050 egg sets, 17,000 skeletons, and 3,375 spirit specimens (a specimen preserved in fluid). In 2010, almost 517,000 people visited the museum.
The building housing the Senckenberg Museum was erected between 1904 and 1907 outside of the center of Frankfurt in the same area as the
Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, which was founded in 1914. The museum is owned and operated by the
Senckenberg Nature Research Society, which began with an endowment by
Johann Christian Senckenberg
Johann Christian Senckenberg (28 February 1707 – 15 November 1772) was a German physician
A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional ...
.
Attractions include a ''
Diplodocus'' (donated by the
American Museum of Natural History
The American Museum of Natural History (abbreviated as AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. In Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 26 inter ...
on the occasion of the present museum building's inauguration in 1907), the crested
Hadrosaur ''
Parasaurolophus
''Parasaurolophus'' (; meaning "near crested lizard" in reference to '' Saurolophus)'' is a genus of herbivorous hadrosaurid ornithopod dinosaur that lived in what is now North America and possibly Asia during the Late Cretaceous Period, abou ...
'', a fossilized ''
Psittacosaurus'' with clear bristles around its tail and visible fossilized stomach contents, and an ''
Oviraptor''. Big public attractions also include the ''
Tyrannosaurus rex'', an original of an ''
Iguanodon'', and the museum's mascot, the ''
Triceratops''.
The Senckenberg Museum also has a large collection of animal exhibits from every epoch of
Earth's history. For example, the museum houses many originals from the
Messel pit: field mice, reptiles, fish and a
predecessor to the modern horse that lived about 50 million years ago and stood less than 60 cm tall.
Unique in Europe is a cast of the famous ''Lucy'', an almost complete skeleton of the upright hominid ''
Australopithecus afarensis''. Historical cabinets full of stuffed animals are arranged in the upper levels; among other things one can see one of twenty existing examples of the
quagga, which has been extinct since 1883. Since the remodeling finished in 2003, a new reptile exhibit addresses both the biodiversity of reptiles and
amphibians
Amphibians are four-limbed and ectothermic vertebrates of the class Amphibia. All living amphibians belong to the group Lissamphibia. They inhabit a wide variety of habitats, with most species living within terrestrial, fossorial, arbore ...
and the topic of nature conservation.
History
In 1763,
Johann Christian Senckenberg
Johann Christian Senckenberg (28 February 1707 – 15 November 1772) was a German physician
A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional ...
donated 95,000 guilders-his entire fortune-to establish a community hospital and to promote scientific projects. Senckenberg died in 1772. In 1817, in Senckenberg's memory, 32 Frankfurt citizens founded the
Senckenberg Nature Research Society (in German: ''Senckenberg Gesellschaft für Naturforschung''). Soon after, donated his collection of bird and mammal specimens to the society. The museum's first location was near the
Eschenheimer Turm. The museum moved to a new building on Senckenberganlage in 1907.
Gallery
Diplodocus longus Senckenberg 081810.JPG, '' Diplodocus longus'' dinosaur model and columnar basalt in front of the Senckenberg Museum.
Triceratops 2 Skulls Senckenberg.jpg, Original '' Triceratops'' skulls
Giganotosaurus carolinii DSC 2950.jpg, Reconstructed skeleton of Giganotosaurus carolinii
See also
*
Museumsufer
References
External links
*
*
Senckenberg Nature Museum on Google Cultural Institute
{{Authority control
Museums in Frankfurt
Leibniz Association
Frankfurt