Cleveland Museum of Natural History
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Cleveland Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum located approximately five miles (8 km) east of downtown Cleveland, Ohio in University Circle, a 550-acre (220 ha) concentration of educational, cultural and medical institutions. The museum was established in 1920 to perform research, education and development of collections in the fields of anthropology, archaeology, astronomy, botany, geology, paleontology, wildlife biology, and zoology.
A famous scientist associated with the museum is Donald Johanson, who was the curator of the museum when he discovered "Lucy," the skeletal remains of the ancient hominid Australopithecus afarensis.
In 2002, the new Fannye Shafran Planetarium was built near the entrance to the museum, containing displays on the planets in the Solar System, and historical instruments of exploration, such as compasses and astrolabes.
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[edit] Exhibits
Museum collections total more than four million specimens and include:
- Extensive examples of Late Devonian Cleveland Shale fish.
- Nine hundred monkey and ape skeletons, and more than 3,100 human skeletons (the Hamann-Todd Collection).
- The only specimen of the small tyrannosaur Nanotyrannus lancensis.
- The holotype of the Haplocanthosaurus sauropod.
- The most complete mount of a Coelophysis bauri.
- The remains of Balto the sled dog.
- An extensive mineralogy collection that includes a moon rock and the Jeptha Wade gem collection.
[edit] Hamman-Todd Collection
The Hamann-Todd Collection is a collection of more than 3100 human skeletons and over 900 primate skeletons that were assembled starting in 1893. The collection was originally housed in Western Reserve University Medical School; in a new medical building was built. The first floor of this building contained the Hamann Museum of Comparative Anthropology and Anatomy. However, due to the costs of storing the bones the collection was transferred to the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.
The collection was started by Carl August Hamann. Its administration was taken over by T. Wingate Todd after Hamann was named dean of Case Western's medical school. Todd managed to assemble the great majority of the human skeletons in the collection, over 3000, before his death in 1938.
[edit] Temporary Exhibits
- 3 June 2006 - 3 September 2006
"Discovering Chimpanzees: The Remarkable World of Jane Goodall"
- A collection of exhibits and information on wild Chimpanzees, and the work and life of Dr. Jane Goodall who studies them.
- A city-wide "Go Ape!" passport is available during the exhibits stay, which also includes admission to the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo to see the Chimpanzees there, as well as the OMNIMAX movie Jane Goodall's Wild Chimpanzees at the Great Lakes Science Center.
Past temporary exhibits, held in the Kahn Hall, have included The Ice Age which had a life-size recreated Wooly Mammoth (complete with Early Man), large insects and the effects of pollution on the world.
[edit] Reference
Jones-Kern, Kevin, Bruce Latimer (Spring 1996). "Skeletons Out of the Closet". Explorer. Retrieved on 9 July, 2006.
