If the Natural History Museum at London is the granddaddy of natural history museums, then the Humboldt Museum of Natural History in Berlin, established in 1810, is assuredly the great-granddaddy of boneyards. Well worth a visit to see the best preserved fossil of Archaeopteryx, the earliest known bird, and its Brachiosaurus, the world's largest mounted dinosaur skeleton.
Thanks for the link... and the series of links! Excellent fodder for my evolution-obsessed crew. (Those Understanding Evolution and Becoming Human sites are extra-wonderful. Thanks for reminding me that I need to go back and look through them again.)
And if you want to add some literary non-fiction on the subject, you could do worse than read the essay "A Fist in the Eye of God" in Barbara Kingsolver's collection Small Wonder (published 2002 but I've only been reading it this past week). The whole collection is amazingly well written and includes several essays on the importance of preserving bio-diversity but that one essay is directly about evolution and its importance.
Thanks for the HT.
Lovely list of museums and links. I was lucky enough to get to visit the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology in Drumheller, Alberta, and it was wonderful. At the time they had a display from China of the eggs that had been found.
Alas the kids weren't with us so they have just seen the pic's but it was a lovely experience. We also visited the badlands where many of the 'dinosaur bones' at the museum were found.
OC, thanks for the reminder. Added Hummy to the list last night.
RedMolly, turnaround is fair play -- thank you! My youngest (6.5yo) is currently obsessed with Virginia Lee Burton's "Life Story"...
JoVE, something else to add the library list. Thanks.
Alasandra, you were in my backyard and you didn't tell me! Next time, bring the kids too :)
Commenting by HaloScan
