Natural History Museum of the University of Pisa

About

The Natural History Museum of the University of Pisa, located in Calci, about 9 kilometres (6 mi) east of Pisa, is dedicated to the study and display of natural history. The museum is home to one of the largest collections of cetacean skeletons in Europe. In addition to its extensive cetacean holdings, the museum's oldest collections include seashells amassed by the Italian invertebrate scientist, Niccolò Gualtieri.

The museum is organized into two sectors.

- Prehistory of Monte Pisano The other sector includes the permanent exhibitions of

- Room "The Earth between myth and science.”

The museum has the largest freshwater aquarium in Italy at 60,000 liters. The first sector of the exhibition is entirely dedicated to Lake Tanganyika and hosts various specimens of cichlids belonging to the Tropheus. The second section houses dipnoi, arowana, some freshwater puffers, an axolotl colony, a softshell turtle and a mata mata specimen. The third sector is the largest tank and is dedicated to Koi carp. The fourth and fifth sectors show off world fish biodiversity with Asian giant gourami, the American Oscar fish and the alligator pike.

This room is dedicated to the excavations that were started in 1847 of the Lion's Cave in Agnano.

Leopold Blaschka produced marine invertebrate glass reproductions. The museum has 51 examples. The collection is a remarkable example of the fusion between science and craftsmanship.

Leopold Blaschka produced marine invertebrate glass reproductions. The museum has 51 examples. The collection is a remarkable example of the fusion between science and craftsmanship.

A project to devote the garden to the plants of Monte Pisano is currently underway.

Over 300 specimens are spread over the third floor, including an example of the Père David’s deer.

There is a 50 thousand-year-old fossil skeleton of Hippopotamus antiquus. Also, there is a reconstruction of Indohyus, a terrestrial mammal ancestor of modern cetaceans. The exhibition then continues with the cast of a skeleton and the reconstruction of an Ambulocetus natans, an ancient cetacean that was probably able to both swim and walk.

There is a holotype of Aegyptocetus tarfa found in 2002 by a marble cutter of Pietrasanta in a block of Egyptian limestone. The path then ends with a series of casts of fossils belonging to Cynthiacetus.

The cetacean collection was significantly enriched between the second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, thanks to then-director Sebastiano Richiardi to create a collection that had at least one specimen for each species of existing cetacean.

The cetacean gallery is a 110-meter long space surmounted by a gabled roof. When the friars still inhabited the Certosa, it was used for drying hay and grains, which were then stored in the numerous silos located at the edge of the structure. The exhibition was organized in 2018 into eight thematic areas containing more than 28 skeletons from the 27 species present in the collection, as well as 11 life-sized models including a baleen, five casts of fossils mostly discovered and studied by the team of the University of Pisa, such as that of Livyatan melvillei as well as from real fossils, such as the holotypes of Balaenula astensis, found in Portacomaro in 1940.

Most are skeletal remains, although there are also preparations preserved in liquid. While this is not the largest in the number of specimens, it has the largest diversity with 27 different species. The gallery contains complete skeletons of Hector's dolphin, White-beaked dolphin, Finless porpoise, and the very rare Andrews' beaked whale ; as well as those of the Sei whale and blue whale, the latter purchased, again by Richiardi, in 1900 from the Museum of Natural History of Bergen, in Norway. Also, the museum also houses the only adult skeletons of Humpback whales and North Atlantic right whales present in Italy, the only two Killer Whale skeletons in Italy, the only two complete with beluga, and the only one complete with boreal hyperodon. Alongside the collection of current cetaceans, the museum also possesses various finds of fossil cetaceans of various origins and acquisitions. However, a large part of them was donated to the Museum by the Florentine paleontologist Roberto Lawley, such as an individual's remains from Etruridelphis giulii.

There is also a blue whale, and the fin whale. The collection includes the mandible of a sperm whale beached in 1714 in Populonia.

This hall includes a full-scale reconstruction of a portion of the 31,000-year old painted wall of the Chauvet cave ( Ardèche, France). [ citation needed ]

A large collection of minerals from the Tuscan area as well as the largest Italian meteorite: the 48 kg Bagnone ’s Octahedrite.

A 9-meter by 5-meter wooden reconstruction of Noah's Ark with 160 animals beside a cyclops and a unicorn.

The biblical myth is contested by descriptive panels, samples of volcanic rocks, and explanations of Earth's origin through evolution.