The basic exhibition area of the museum is ***5700 square meters. The exhibition includes four parts: the history of ancient animals, the history of human development and the history of animal and plant evolution.
History of human development
The exhibition of the history of human development reveals the origin of human beings and the formation and development of human society with a large number of objects, models, unearthed cultural relics and scenic boxes that lived in early apes two or three million years ago. There are 370 exhibits in ancient human history, which show that people evolved from apes and human society developed from apes.
Animal showroom
There are six exhibition halls showing invertebrates, fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals. Besides gibbons, golden monkeys, giant pandas, clouded leopards, leopards, tigers, Asian elephants, dugong, wild donkeys, sika deer, wild yaks, wildebeests, wild camels, brown-eared pheasants, alligators and paddlefish, there are also national second-class protected animals and extinct wild elk (the "four elephants"). In addition, there are many famous foreign animals on display, such as lions, giraffes, baboons and chimpanzees in Africa, platypus, kangaroos and emus in Australia, lions in the United States, stilt crabs in Japan and so on.
Animal and plant evolution room
The evolutionary history of animals and plants is mainly the display of ancient corpses and plants.
The corpse discovery room * * * shows five discovered corpses, among which the female corpse of Loulan unearthed in Loulan area of Xinjiang was determined by carbon 14.
This year, 3880 95, was the earliest known corpse found in China. In the exhibition hall of body discovered in China, there are also the Hami body discovered in Xinjiang more than 3,000 years ago, as well as the body discovered in Tang, Song and Ming dynasties.
The plant exhibition hall is divided into sequence hall, plant evolution hall and plant transformation and utilization hall. The contents include primitive algae, fungi without chlorophyll, lichens produced by fungi and algae, ferns, precursors of terrestrial plants, bryophytes, a branch of terrestrial plants, and even advanced Qiu Zi plants. Connect the ecological landscape box along the display line to show the process of plant evolution. In the center of the exhibition hall is a huge Carboniferous fern three-dimensional landscape box, which reproduces the earliest swamp forest on the earth more than 200 million years ago, and is also the first batch of big forests after plants went from aquatic to terrestrial. The extinct ferns such as fish scales and seals stand in the upper forest, and countless vegetation ferns cover swamps and wetlands.
Famous exhibits
Shanghai Museum of Natural History
Among the 180 exhibits exhibited in the exhibition hall of ancient animal history, the most striking is the Mamen Xilong in Hechuan and the ancient elephant of the Yellow River in the center of the hall: the former is 22 meters long, 3.5 meters high at the shoulder and weighs several tens of tons, which was unearthed in Taihe Town, Hechuan District, Chongqing, and is one of the largest dinosaurs in the world; The latter is 8 meters long and 4 meters high, and a pair of front teeth is 3 meters long. It was unearthed in Longdong Loess Plateau, and it was also a monster among ancient beasts. In addition, there are ancient animal fossils such as Xu Lufenglong, Spiny Tuojiang Dragon, Wei Junggar Pterosaur, dinosaur egg, dinosaur footprint, Xuanwu frog, ichthyosaur, giant rhinoceros and so on.
In the exhibition hall of body discovered in China, there are Hami body discovered in Xinjiang more than 3,000 years ago, and there are also body discovered in Tang, Song and Ming dynasties.
Rare animals and plants
There are 2757 exhibits in the animal exhibition area, which are set off by the ecological landscape. Among them, there are two ecological landscapes, Thunderbird and Mountain Rabbit, which are the first in China.
View shows that the body color of animals can change with the change of seasons to adapt to environmental protection. Among the specimens on display, there are Pinctada maxima, paddlefish, giant salamander, Chinese alligator, leatherback turtle, brown eared pheasant, Siberian tiger, dugong and baiji, and some of them are endemic to China. There are also many rare exotic animals, such as crabs, birds of paradise, deer, cougars, emus, wallabies and so on.
There are 323 exhibits in the Plant Evolution Exhibition, showing the most primitive plant algae, fungi without chlorophyll, lichens produced by fungi, pioneer ferns of terrestrial plants, a kind of lateral moss of terrestrial plants and the highest seed plants. It is a relatively complete and detailed display of the evolution and development process of the plant kingdom in the long history of hundreds of millions of years.
Since the special exhibition "Several Common Birds Harming Agriculture and Forestry in Shanghai" was first held in May 1958, * * * has held 84 temporary and mobile exhibitions with different contents.
Shanghai Museum of Natural History
It has 240,000 specimens of various types. Among them, there are 100 species of model specimens with high academic value, among which 184 are collected for the first time. Newly recorded specimens in China (collected abroad, first discovered in China); National first-class and second-class protected biological specimens; Rare specimens such as paleontology, minerals, and ancient corpses, such as the original Bossuxian subspecies, Hami ancient corpse, and the first model of Peking Man's skull (the skull specimen has been lost); Extremely rare exotic specimens, such as barracuda, wedge-toothed lizard, platypus and so on. Known as a "living fossil", it is of great significance to discuss animal evolution. The Shanghai Museum of Nature also has a collection of 66,352 books and 65,438+00047 periodicals in various languages, totaling 76,399 books.
Obtain a specimen
Shanghai Natural Museum has a rich collection of specimens and books. In addition to receiving specimens from the Shanghai Asian Literature Museum run by the British and some natural specimens from the Sinian Museum run by the French, all kinds of natural specimens are mainly obtained through collection, purchase, gift and exchange. Up to 1985, there are more than 200,000 specimens in the collection, including more than 62,000 animal specimens, more than 35,000 plant specimens, more than 700 paleontological specimens, more than 700 neopaleontological specimens and more than 700 mineral and rock specimens. Among these specimens, there are a certain number of type specimens and newly recorded specimens first discovered in China. There are rare biological specimens unique to China and world-famous, with fossils of 600 million years ago. The museum also collects more than 60,000 books and materials in Chinese and foreign languages for scientific research and education.