The Hasanbey Zardabi Natural History Museum is a

natural history museum A natural history museum or museum of natural history is a scientific institution with natural history collections that include current and historical records of animals, plants, fungi, ecosystems, geology, paleontology, climatology, and more. ...

in Baku, Azerbaijan. The museum bears the name of

Hasan bey Zardabi Hasan bey Zardabi ( az, Həsən bəy Zərdabi ), born Hasan bey Salim bey oghlu Malikov ( az, Həsən bəy Səlim bəy oğlu Məlikov, links=no ; 28 June 1842 — 15 November 1907), was an Azerbaijani journalist and intellectual, founder of the ...

, an Azerbaijani journalist and intellectual, and

founder Founder or Founders may refer to: Places *Founders Park, a stadium in South Carolina, formerly known as Carolina Stadium * Founders Park, a waterside park in Islamorada, Florida Arts, entertainment, and media * Founders (''Star Trek''), the ali ...

of the first Azeri-language newspaper

Akinchi ''Akinchi'' ( az, Əkinçi, ), also transliterated as ''Ekinchi'' ("The Cultivator"), was the first Azerbaijani-language newspaper, published in Baku (then part of the Russian Empire, now the capital of the Republic of Azerbaijan) between 1875 a ...

("The Ploughman") in 1875. The museum has two departments: a geology department that has samples of metallic and nonmetallic natural resources and minerals and rocks of Azerbaijan and a

zoology Zoology ()The pronunciation of zoology as is usually regarded as nonstandard, though it is not uncommon. is the branch of biology that studies the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, and ...

department. The general collection of the museum numbers more than 1400 different items. The biological department exhibits numerous skeletons and fragments of animal bones found during field work and treated by researchers. The oldest

exhibit Exhibit may refer to: *Exhibit (legal), evidence in physical form brought before the court **Demonstrative evidence, exhibits and other physical forms of evidence used in court to demonstrate, show, depict, inform or teach relevant information to ...

is the teeth of an ichthyosaur from the Cretaceous period, more than 120 million years old. The research activities of the Natural History Museum have developed in several directions, focused especially on paleontological sites. The main research focuses on the study of the Binagadi quaternary and the Eldar late Sarmatian hipparion faunas, Pirekishkuli Maykop vertebrate fauna, numerous sites of primitive people, as well as Azokh cave and others. In the collection of the quaternary fauna of Binagadi, there are 41 species of mammals, 110 species of birds, 2 reptiles, 1 amphibian, 107 insects and 22 species of plants. Among those are near-complete fossilized skeletons of horses,

deer Deer or true deer are hoofed ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. The two main groups of deer are the Cervinae, including the muntjac, the elk (wapiti), the red deer, and the fallow deer; and the Capreolinae, including the re ...

gazelle A gazelle is one of many antelope species in the genus ''Gazella'' . This article also deals with the seven species included in two further genera, '' Eudorcas'' and '' Nanger'', which were formerly considered subgenera of ''Gazella''. A third ...

s and saigas that don't live in the territory of

Azerbaijan Azerbaijan (, ; az, Azərbaycan ), officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, , also sometimes officially called the Azerbaijan Republic is a transcontinental country located at the boundary of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is a part of t ...

anymore.azeurotel.com
, Museums of various profiles and organizations: Natural History Museum named after Hasan Bey Zardabi. The Eldar fauna consists of 23 representatives of various forms of

vertebrate Vertebrates () comprise all animal taxa within the subphylum Vertebrata () (chordates with backbones), including all mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish. Vertebrates represent the overwhelming majority of the phylum Chordata, with c ...

animals. In addition, the museum also has two types of

hipparion ''Hipparion'' (Greek, "pony") is an extinct genus of horse that lived in North America, Asia, Europe, and Africa during the Miocene through Pleistocene ~23 Mya—781,000 years ago. It lived in non-forested, grassy plains, shortgrass prairie or ...

s (mammals of the horse family), the

Sarmatian The Sarmatians (; grc, Σαρμαται, Sarmatai; Latin: ) were a large confederation of ancient Eastern Iranian equestrian nomadic peoples of classical antiquity who dominated the Pontic steppe from about the 3rd century BC to the 4th cen ...

whale and the lower jaw of a

mastodon A mastodon ( 'breast' + 'tooth') is any proboscidean belonging to the extinct genus ''Mammut'' (family Mammutidae). Mastodons inhabited North and Central America during the late Miocene or late Pliocene up to their extinction at the end of th ...

. The museum also exhibits the upper jaw, teeth and tusks of the southern elephant which lived in our country 600000 years ago and was discovered in

Mingachevir Mingachevir ( az, Mingəçevir ) is the fourth-largest city in Azerbaijan with a population of about 106,000. It's often called the "city of lights" because of its hydroelectric power station on the Kur River, which divides the city down the mid ...

in 2001. The museum operates under the auspices of the Institute of Geology and Geophysics of Azerbaijan. File:Archiodiscodon meridionalis Nesti.jpg, Skull of Southern elephant (''Archiodiscodon meridionalis'' Nesti) in Natural History Museum named after Hasanbey Zardabi. Baku, Azerbaijan. The skeleton of this elephant was found by Lutfali Babayev in 2001 near

town, on western slope of Dayirmandag mountain. File:Diodon hystrix in museum.jpg, A mounted ''Diodon hystrix''. Natural History Museum named after Hasanbey Zardabi. Baku, Azerbaijan

References

{{coord missing, Azerbaijan Museums with year of establishment missing Museums in Baku Natural history museums Geology museums Zoology museums Museums established in 1930