Naturalis

Naturalis Biodiversity Center
Mammoth skeleton on display in the section about prehistoric animals
Location in South Holland in the Netherlands
Established	9 August 1820 (1820-08-09)
Location	Darwinweg 2[1] Leiden, Netherlands
Coordinates	52°09′53″N 4°28′24″E / 52.16472°N 4.47333°E / 52.16472; 4.47333Coordinates: 52°09′53″N 4°28′24″E / 52.16472°N 4.47333°E / 52.16472; 4.47333
Type	National museum Natural history museum Research center
Collection size	37 million objects[2]
Visitors	285,000 (2013 est.)[3] Ranked 15th nationally (2013)
Director	Edwin van Huis[4]
Curator	René Dekker[4]
Public transit access	Leiden Centraal/LUMC[1]
Website	www.naturalis.nl

Naturalis Biodiversity Center is a national museum of natural history and a research center on biodiversity in Leiden, Netherlands.

History

Naturalis originated from the merger of the Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie (abbreviated RMNH) and the Rijksmuseum van Geologie en Mineralogie (abbreviated RGM) in 1984. In 1986 it was decided that the museum had to become the national public natural history museum and a new building was built. The new building cost about €60 million, making it the second most expensive museum building in the Netherlands.

Collection

The tower of Naturalis, in which almost the entire collection is housed

The current museum is known for the numerous objects in its collections. Prior to the merger with the Zoölogisch Museum Amsterdam and National Herbarium of the Netherlands, there were approximately 10 million zoological and geological specimens in the Naturalis collection.

• 5,250,000 insects
• 2,290,000 other invertebrates
• 1,000,000 vertebrates
• 1,160,000 fossils
• 440,000 rocks and minerals
• 2,000 gemstones
• 10,000 objects in an educational collection

Following the merger with the collections of the Zoölogisch Museum Amsterdam and National Herbarium of the Netherlands in 2011-12, there are now approximately 37 million specimens.^[2]

The collections are stored in a 60-meter-high tower, a landmark in Leiden, opened in April 1998.

Exhibitions

Besides its temporary exhibition the museum has several permanent exhibitions:

• Nature Theater (Animals, plants, fungi, one-celled organisms, bacteria, stones, and minerals: an impression of nature in all its various forms.)
• Primeval Parade (A parade of fossils shows the history of the earth and the development of life.)
• Earth (Games and signs inform the visitor about the Earth's complexities.)
• Life (It displays how plants and animals live and survive on earth. )
• Earth Inside (For children and their parents to discover in a playful way how nature works.)
• Biotechnology (Games and movies show the visitor how essential DNA is to all life processes.)
• Treasure Chamber (Special security and storage conditions protect the precious gemstones, including a collection that once belonged to the Dutch King William I, and the mounted skins of animals that became extinct over the past few hundred years.)

Buildings

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  Entrance Naturalis (Pesthuis/Plague House)

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  Cash register Naturalis (Pesthuis)

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  Naturalis (Museum and Collections) [2013]

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  Naturalis (At the right: bridge with zebra pattern)

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Naturalis Leiden.

• Naturalis, official website
• Naturalis extinct birds, 3D presentation