To me, there is no question that the Galerie de Paléontologie et d’Anatomie comparée of Paris’s Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle (MNHN) is the mecca of organismal anatomy, as their homepage describes. Georges Cuvier got the morphological ball rolling there and numerous luminaries were in various ways associated with it too; Buffon and Lamarck and St Hiliaire to name but a few early ones. It is easy to think of other contenders such as the NHMUK in London (i.e., Owen), Jena in Germany, the MCZ at Harvard (e.g. Romer) and so forth. But they don’t quite cut the dijon.
As today is John’s Freezer’s 7th blogoversary, and I was just at the MNHN in Paris snapping photos of their mecca, it’s time for an overdue homage to the magnificent mustard of that maison du morphologie. The exhibits have little signage and are an eclectic mix of specimens, but this adds to its appeal and eccentricity for me. I’ve chosen some of my favourite things I saw on exhibit on this visit, with a focus on things that get less attention (NO MESOZOIC DINOSAURS! sorry), are just odd, or otherwise caught my fancy. It’s a photo blog post, so I shall shut up now, much as I could gush about this place. I could live here.
Need plus-grand images? Clic!
Stomach-Churning Rating: 7/10 for some potentially disturbing anatomical images such as viscera, preserved bits, models of naughty bits etc.
Greetings. Note the stomach-churning rating above, please.
Right. We’ll get the amazing first view as one steps into the gallery done first. Mucho mecca. Anatomy fans simply must go here at least once in their life to experience it, and one cannot ever truly absorb all the history and profound, abundant details of morphology on exhibit.
Less-often-seen views from the balcony; one more below.
Indian Rhinoceros from Versailles’s royal menagerie; came to the MNHN in 1792.
Brown bear hindlimb bones.
Brown bear forelimb bones and pelvis.
Two baby polar bears; part of the extensive display of ontogeny (too often missing in other museums’ exhibits).
Asian elephant from Sri Lanka.
Lamb birth defect. Like ontogeny, pathology was a major research interest in the original MNHN days.
Wild boar birth defect.
Fabulous large Indian gharial skull + skeleton.
“Exploded” Nile crocodile skull to show major bones.
Let’s play name-all-the-fish-skull-bones, shall we?
Rare sight of a well-prepared Mola mola ocean sunfish skeleton.
Diversity of large bird eggs.
Asian musk deer (male), with tooth roots exposed.
Freaky gorilla is here to say that now the really odd specimens begin, including the squishy bits.
Freaky tamandua, to keep freaky gorilla company. Displaying salivary glands associated with the tongue/pharynx. These are examples of anatomical preparations using older analogues of plastination, such as papier-mâché modelling. I’m not completely sure how the preservation was done here.
Tamandua preserved head, showing palate/tongue/pharynx mechanism.
Chimp ears. Because.
Why not add another chimp ear?
Many-chambered ruminant stomach of a sheep.
Simpler stomach of a wolf. Not much room for Little Red Riding Hood, I’m afraid.
Expansive surface area of a hippo’s stomach; but not a multi-chambered ruminant gut.
Cervical air sacs of a Turquoise-fronted Amazon parrot.
Heart and rather complex pulmonary system of a varanid lizard.
It’s pharynx time: Keratinous spines of a sea turtle’s throat. All the better to grip squids or jellies!
Pharynx convergent evolution in a giraffe: keratinous spines to help grip food and protect the pharynx from spiny acacia thorns while it passes down the long throat.
Tongue/hyoid region of the pharynx of a varanid, showing the forked tongue mechanism.
Palaeontological awesomeness on the upper floor (the 2nd part of the gallery’s name). Here, the only Siberian woolly mammoth, I’m told, to have left Russia for permanent display like this. Frozen left side of face, here, and 2 more parts below.
Mammuthus primigenius freeze-dried lower ?left forelimb.
Skeleton that goes with the above 2 parts. It’s big.
But “big” is only relative- my large hand for scale here vs. a simply ginormous Mammuthus meridionalis; full skeleton below.
Four-tusked, moderate-sized Amebelodon elephantiform.
Naked woolly rhinoceros Coelodonta.
Extinct rhino Diaceratherium, with a pathological ankle (degenerative joint disease). I love spotting pathologies in specimens- it makes them stand out more as individuals that lived a unique life.
Glyptodont butt and thagomizer, to begin our tour of this business-end weaponry.
Eutatus leg bones, from a large fossil armadillo; Argentina. Really odd morphology; Xenarthrans are so cool.
Giant ground sloth (Megatherium) foot; ridiculously weird.
Giant ground sloth hand is full of WTF.
Metriorhynchus sea-crocodile from the Cretaceous: hind end.
Odobenocetops one-tusked whale that I still cannot get my head around, how it converged so closely on the morphology of a walrus.
Thalassocnus, the large marine sloth… few fossils are so strange to me as this one. But modern sloths swim well enough so why not, evolution says!
Rear end of the sea-sloth.
Megaladapis, the giant friggin’ lemur! Not cuddly.
A basilosaurid whale Cynthiacetus, one of the stars of the show, as the denouement of this post. Plan your visit now!
What's In John's Freezer? 
Wot no Rebbachisaurus?!
Having now had time (over lunch) to read and look at this properly, John, thank you so much for this awesome tour of an awesome gallery. I’ve only been there once, at that was a rush around on the way to catch a plane, so I missed most of the goodness you highlight here.
If you’ve not already seen it, I think you will be mightily impressed with this online browseable 3D model of the gallery: https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/paleontology-gallery-mnhm-paris-57947916b4ee43aabaed81b03a6286ec
Just a few comments …
OK, OK, I guess that policy explains the lack of Rebbachisaurus. But you can’t argue that it’s a particularly over-exposed dinosaur!
Holy crap!
We’re going to need a bigger wolf.
That’s no turtle, that’s a sarlacc.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: giant ground sloths are where evolution just gave up.
That would make quite good smack-talk. As in “Yo mama so ugly, she looks like the rear end of a sea-sloth”.
Agreed on all fronts. And backs. Thanks for the tour link!
Wow, 3D-model is absoltely stunning! Never been in this museum but now I know I have to.
Great to see so many things not normally photographed or even mentioned!
[…] were popular for me (not so much for readers, it seemed?) over the past 2 years, including the venerable and still-awesome MNHN in Paris. I’ve also hit a few Bodyworlds-type exhibits for the blog over the years, and the big […]
[…] city and exploring its streets — and museums! I’ve raved about the perfection of la Galerie de Paléontologie et d’Anatomie comparée before, and that love will never die. But this time, in one of my wanderings I stumbled across a […]