The Biodiversity Wall at Museum für Naturkunde Berlin (image from 2007)

In this installation, 3000 mounted species are on display - and yet it is a mere shadow of the variety of Nature. The rich colours and variation in shapes and species make the biodiversity wall a highlight of the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin. The number of currently existing species is, of course, much higher and estimated to lie between 4 and 1 million-millions (= billion or trillion, depending on usage in your country, 10 to the power of 12). Only a fraction of currently living species is known: About 1.8 million animal and plant species have so far been scientifically described, recorded and named. New species are constantly discovered and documented - many of them by scientists of the museum. For each new species, a reference specimen must be deposited in a scientific collection so that researchers all over the world can look it up. The Museum für Naturkunde stores tens of thousands such reference specimens, known as type specimens, in its collections and makes them available to researchers all over the world.

You can experience the famous biodiversity wall in several exhibits:

1. A Virtual Reality story of diversity and its loss (contains both English and German version, approximate viewing time: 5 min.).

2. Biodiversity 24 / 3000 / 8 Million – 24 examples from the 3000 species in the wall (approximate viewing time: 25 min., abbreviate by sampling only some species!).

3. A Tagged Biodiversity Wall, with a zoomable gigapixel panorama containing the names of selected specimens and groups (approximate viewing time: 4 min. – plus any amount of time to explore the names).