In which I visit the natural history museum

15.05.13

Ins Naturkundemuseum!  This museum is located in the Joanneum Quarter, a complex of buildings which houses several museums.

Upon entering the courtyard, I learned that Friedrich Mohs, he of the Mohs Scale of Hardness, worked at the Joanneum (the technical university founded by Archduke Johann).  Here is his statue:

The entrance places you two stories under ground, and one must go back up to the second floor to visit the natural history museum.  

The natural history collection was recently reorganized and placed into a new exhibit space.  I was impressed by the design of the exhibits.  The plant and animal exhibits focus on biodiversity and evolution while the geology exhibit focuses on rock formation over time along with an understandably kick ass mineral collection.  

The introductory exhibit features animals native to the region of Styria.

In addition to the taxidermy specimens were many dried plants.  I thoroughly enjoy visiting museums like this because they provide a smorgasbord of interesting words that rarely come up in every day conversation.

Badger badger badger badger badger badger...

In addition to native plant species, there was a wall dedicated to invasive species also found in the area. 

This is also a good place to go if you don't know what to call that weird bug you found in your room.

European hares are huge.  Adjust any mental images involving rabbits in stories set in Europe appropriately.

Weasels.

 This was a fun exhibit.  Continuing with the evolution theme, this room was dedicated to adaptation.  Flowers were displayed side by side with their pollinators, along with a giant model to show how the different parts worked.  I enjoyed how it placed the organisms in an ecological context rather than just grouping by species.

There were also examples of variation caused by artificial selection by humans.

This shows how selection can create mimics.  In the center is a poisonous butterfly.  Predators would avoid this butterfly, so nontoxic butterflies that happened to have similar markings were left alone.  This selection pressure resulted in varieties of nontoxic butterflies that closely resemble the toxic kind.

Leaf bugs are cool.

How many birds can you find in this grass?

These are two pairs of species who have different ranges based on the type of soil.

 Finally I know what a Hooded Crow is called.  This type of crow is the one I see the most at the house and around Graz.

The shell exhibit showed how one goal (defense) could be achieved through many different forms.

 There was also a section dedicated to different seed dispersal strategies.

 The raffia palm seed cluster is just cool looking.

There was a film area where you could either sit or lean against the padded wall.  The movie was a time lapse photography study of the life cycle of fungus, which was really neat looking.

 The first insect room was organized as a timeline that showed when certain features show up in the fossil record, with a species that demonstrated that particular feature at that spot.

 Shiny.

Here's more mimicry.

Protein!

There was also a display dedicated to outliers: largest, heaviest, longest, etc.

 Our good friend the Asian Lady Beetle displays one of the most diverse color ranges within a single species.

 Here is a type of cardinal I've never seen before.

 Another exhibit was dedicated to forms of movement.  In this room, specimens are in poses of motion with an accompanying skeleton mount in the same pose.

 Another room focused on how species spread or disappear.  This species is not extinct from Earth, but it has been driven from the region by the destruction of its habitat.

This is an Alpien Ibex, which is being reintroduced into the wild in its former territory.

 The geology exhibit starts with the formation of the earth and moves to the present day.  The striped rock below provides evidence for the earliest life on earth.  When life began expelling oxygen as a waste product, it created bands of oxidized iron.  When life produced more oxygen than could be captured this way, the composition of the atmosphere changed.  In my geosciences course years ago, the professor explained that the multiple bands of iron may indicate that life emerged from the chemical soup and died off again multiple times.

Rock formation cycle.

This is a (small sample of a) lithoteque.  Each slab is a sample of a particular kind of rock with notes as to its type and place of origin.

 Here are drilling samples from around the region.

 One of the lithoteque specimens.

 This was a Giant Deer.

I didn't stick around to watch this exhibit, but it's a relief map with a projector above it that can display various overlays that go along with an audio program, which explains various features of the region.

So much shiny...

 Seriously, I took a ridiculous amount of mineral specimen pictures.

I'm not sure why this is magenta.

 Each sample comes with a label that explains what it is, or if that is clear (say, in a cabinet with only hematite), then only its place of origin.

 In the center of the room there were exhibits that explained various properties of minerals.  Here, naturally formed and synthetic gems are compared side by side.  I found this interesting, because the synthetic looks like extruded glass and I didn't know that synthetic gems looked like that before cutting and polishing.

Lots and lots of wooden models of three dimensional forms used as references for studying crystal formations.

 Again, this sort of exhibit is useful for finding out what certain common substance are called.

All in all, it was an interesting and informative museum.  The exhibits were well-designed to present their material in an engaging manner.

Here's a shot of the entrance as I was on my way home.

The courtyard of the Joanneum.

 Here's Jakominiplatz, one of the busier stations on my way home.

Here's a different view of the Hauptplatz.  The clock tower is on top of the Schlossberg, which is where I went on Thursday.