Evolution on Display on the Banks of the Seine

摘要

Paris's Jardin des Plantes offers visitors botany and much more. Entering from the Gare d'Austerlitz Metro station, you can begin with the Galeries de Paleontologie et d'Anatomie Comparee. Opened for the 1900 World's Fair, this sunlit building houses three floors of anatomical history. Dioramas and handmade educational posters from decades past line the walls, along with case upon case of small fossils. Although nearly every nook and cranny of the museum is filled with paleonto-logical samples, most people come to see the skeletons (of dinosaurs, enormous Ice Age mammals, and even familiar extant species). Many specimens are grouped by evolutionary relationships, emphasizing homologous structures; others, by geologic period. Typed and handwritten signage adds an additional je ne sais quoi to the already fascinating displays.