The Palaeontological Museum in

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

(''Paläontologisches Museum München''), is a German national natural history

museum A museum is an institution dedicated to displaying or Preservation (library and archive), preserving culturally or scientifically significant objects. Many museums have exhibitions of these objects on public display, and some have private colle ...

located in the city of

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

Bavaria Bavaria, officially the Free State of Bavaria, is a States of Germany, state in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the list of German states by area, largest German state by land area, comprising approximately 1/5 of the total l ...

. It is associated with the

Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich, LMU or LMU Munich; ) is a public university, public research university in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. Originally established as the University of Ingolstadt in 1472 by Duke ...

. It has a large collection of fossils of animals and plants such as Mesozoic reptiles, early elephants and

saber-toothed cats Machairodontinae (from Ancient Greek μάχαιρα ''Makhaira, machaira,'' a type of Ancient Greek sword and ὀδόντος ''odontos'' meaning tooth) is an extinct subfamily of carnivoran mammals of the cat family Felidae, representing the ...

. The paleontological and geological institute which houses the museum is formally called the Bavarian State Collection for Palaeontology and Geology (''Bayerische Staatsammlung für Paläontologie und Geologie,'' BSPG), which itself is one of several institutions which make up the Bavarian Natural History Collections (''Staatliche Naturwissenschaftliche Sammlungen Bayerns'', SNSB). One of its highlights is the specimen of the early bird ''

Archaeopteryx ''Archaeopteryx'' (; ), sometimes referred to by its German name, "" ( ''Primeval Bird'') is a genus of bird-like dinosaurs. The name derives from the ancient Greek (''archaîos''), meaning "ancient", and (''ptéryx''), meaning "feather" ...

'' discovered in 1861. The museum is also interesting because of the architecture of its building, the former urban college of arts and crafts.

External links

Paleontology museums in MunichBSPG homepage (in German)BSPG on the SNSB homepage
Museums in Munich

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See also

External links