- Cleveland Museum of Natural History
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Cleveland Museum of Natural History
Museum LogoThe Cleveland Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum located approximately five miles (8 km) east of downtown Cleveland, Ohio in University Circle, a 550-acre (220 ha) concentration of educational, cultural and medical institutions. The museum was established in 1920 to perform research, education and development of collections in the fields of anthropology, archaeology, astronomy, botany, geology, paleontology, wildlife biology, and zoology.
Donald Johanson was the curator of the museum when he discovered "Lucy," the skeletal remains of the ancient hominid Australopithecus afarensis. The current Curator and Head of the Physical Anthropology Department is Yohannes Haile-Selassie.
In 2002, the new Fannye Shafran Planetarium was built near the entrance to the museum, containing displays on the planets in the Solar System, and historical instruments of exploration, such as compasses and astrolabes.
Contents
Exhibits
The museum's cast of LucyMuseum collections total more than four million specimens and include specimens of paleontology, zoology, archeology, mineralogy, ornithology, and a variety of other scientific subjects.
A beloved full-scale model of a stegosaurus on the lawn delights Cleveland children.
Some of the more important specimens include:
- Extensive examples of Late Devonian Cleveland Shale fish.
- Nine hundred monkey and ape skeletons, and more than 3,100 human skeletons (the Hamann-Todd Collection).
- The only specimen of the small tyrannosaur Nanotyrannus lancensis.
- The holotype of the Haplocanthosaurus sauropod.
- The most complete mount of a Coelophysis bauri.
- The remains of Balto the sled dog.
- An extensive mineralogy collection that includes a moon rock and the Jeptha Wade gem collection.
- Replica skeletons of Triceratops and Jane, a juvenile tyrannosaurid.
- Multiple mastodon and mammoth specimens.
- A cast of an Australopithecus afarensis skeleton, an early hominid affectionately dubbed Lucy.
- A new T-rex skeleton that is now on display.
The museum has made many discoveries over the years. Recently, in Vertebrate Paleontology, both the remains of a Titanicthis in Ohio and a new ceratopsian, Albertaceratops nesmoi, have been made. Both are expected to go on display eventually.
Hamann-Todd Collection
The Hamann-Todd Collection is a collection of more than 3100 human skeletons and over 900 primate skeletons that were assembled starting in 1893. The collection was originally housed in Western Reserve University Medical School; in a new medical building that was built. The first floor of this building contained the Hamann Museum of Comparative Anthropology and Anatomy. However, due to the costs of storing the bones, the collection was transferred to the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.
The collection was started by Carl August Hamann. Its administration was taken over by T. Wingate Todd after Hamann was named dean of Case Western's medical school. Todd managed to assemble the great majority of the human skeletons in the collection, over 3000, before his death in 1938.
References
- Jones-Kern, Kevin; Bruce Latimer (Spring 1996). "Skeletons Out of the Closet". Explorer. http://www.cmnh.org/collections/physanth/documents/HamannTodd_Osteological_Collection.html. Retrieved 2006-07-09.
External links
Coordinates: 41°30′40.97″N 81°36′46.74″W / 41.5113806°N 81.6129833°W
Categories:- Museums in Cleveland, Ohio
- Natural history museums in Ohio
- University Circle
- Museums established in 1920
- Planetaria in the United States
- 1920 establishments in the United States
- Institutions accredited by the American Association of Museums
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