Shanghai Nature Museum

The Shanghai Natural History Museum is located in the Jing’an Sculpture Park. The venue resembles a “green snail” with a unique appearance.Today, the new museum exhibits a rich collection of tens of thousands of specimens, with a skeleton of the 26-meter-long Zhongjiama Menkeng long being a particularly eye-catching exhibit.

The new museum building has five floors, two above ground and three underground. It is usually best to start at the second floor and work your way down. The whole tour takes about half a day to a day, so make sure you pace yourself. The final exhibition on the second basement floor is particularly rich.There are 10 permanent exhibitions in the museum, divided into three systems: natural evolution, living environment, and human civilization.

The “Mystery of Origins” exhibition hall on the second floor focuses on the history of human exploration of the universe, displaying models of astronomical telescopes from ancient times to the present day, as well as graphic introductions to astronomical knowledge.In the theater in one corner of the exhibition hall, you can also watch a 3D short film about meteorites.

The “River of Life” exhibition hall on the first floor displays a large number of taxidermied animals, including snakes, monkeys, and peacocks. The huge model of a Maomingosaurus roars and twists its neck with extraordinary realism.You can observe live butterflies, chameleons, jellyfish and other animals up close through transparent display cases in the Experience Nature exhibition area. You can also touch starfish, sea cucumbers, anemones and other marine creatures in the sea water touch pool, which is a very rare experience.

“The Path of Evolution” (B1) presents the entire history of life from the Cambrian explosion to the emergence of humans through a wide variety of animal skeletons and fossils.Not only can you see a wide variety of dinosaur fossils here, but when you open the museum’s official “augmented reality” app and follow the prompts to aim the camera at the skeleton of a Lufengosaurus, two 3D Lufengosaurus, one large and one small, will appear on the screen, as if trying to jump out of the screen to say hello to you.If you like dinosaurs, you won’t want to miss this.

The second basement floor is one of the most informative floors in the entire museum, with five themes: wisdom of survival, exploration of the earth, and colorful life.It takes a lot of time and energy to look at this floor carefully, so it is recommended to choose some of the highlights to focus on.The “Ecosystems” area uses taxidermy animals and model props to recreate the ecology of the African savanna in 1:1 scale: on the vast African savanna, giraffes and hippos are strolling leisurely, gazelles are escaping from being chased, and a group of lions are sunbathing, which is quite similar to watching “Animal World”;In the “Colorful Life” exhibition area, the “butterfly wing painting” made up of 1,200 butterfly wings is always a popular photo opportunity. The Discovery Center is a favorite with children, where they can experience the sense of accomplishment of digging up fossils with their own hands. Parents and children going out together should not miss it (reservationreserve in advance on site).

After the tour, you might as well go to the souvenir shop to find some small knick-knacks to remember the place by. Arctic fox dolls, mugs with elephant handles, and amber encasing whole insects are all very cute.Most of these dolls cost more than 100 yuan, which is a bit expensive, but they are worth the price.The mystery of the origin of the second floor. There is a restaurant on the right side, and a small cafe on the second basement floor. If you get tired from walking, go have something to eat. The food and drink prices are relatively moderate.