Our 250 Years of Natural Sciences

One side shows a horse, with a caprid (or possibly another horse) above it, and what is probably another caprid lying next to it.

On the other side is a reindeer, partially superimposed over a walking auroch.

The reconstruction is exemplary. None of the bones are perforated; everything is attached to the framework with individual fixings.
Louis De Pauw used carved wooden pieces to replace missing bones (like this left tusk).
Visitors came from all over Europe to admire the result. At the time, the only other mounted mammoth skeleton in the world was in St Petersburg, in Russia.

This photo was taken during the disassembly of the mammoth in 2013.

This animal was a victim of prejudice and ignorance about its way of life. The carnivore hunted at dusk and could open its mouth very wide, making people suspect that it was a threat to sheep and so they eliminated it systematically, encouraged by bounties. Things could have been different: thylacines were easy to tame.
Left: Benjamin at Hobart Zoo in 1933
Right: iconic image taken in the late 1860s

The thylacine exhibited at the Museum has been part of our collection since 1871! It is a very rare and fragile historic specimen, so humidity and lighting have to be well adjusted. That is why the light only switches on when there is someone nearby.

On 12 April 1878, the Belgian Royal Museum of Natural History (as it was then known) was informed of the discovery by telegram.
"Major discovery bones in fault Bernissart coal mine STOP Pyrite deterioration STOP Send Depauw to arrive Mons station tomorrow 8 AM STOP Will be there STOP Urgent STOP Gustave Arnaut."

About thirty relatively complete iguanodon skeletons were discovered 322m underground in a coal mine in Bernissart, Belgium from 1878 to 1881. Since the bones were still in their original position, it was possible to present the skeletons in ‘lifelike’ poses. They immediately attracted visitors from all over the world!

Today a 300 m2 glass case protects this national treasure and gives visitors an optimal view on every one of these gems. In the basement you can also see the skeletons in the position they were found in the mines and learn how they were discovered.

Did they walk on two or four legs? Did they all belong to the same species? Where did they live? Are there more in Bernissart? Find out the answers in our Google-exhibition “The Bernissart Iguanodons”.

The Spy specimens are amongst the most recent Homo neanderthalensis: they are estimated to be 36,000 years old. Other Neanderthal remains were found in Belgium: sites at Sclayn, Fonds-de-Forêt, Goyet, La Naulette, and Engis have also yielded bones and numerous artefacts.

Adrien de Gerlache, some time after his return. He was barely 31 years old when the expedition began.

Among the scientists on board were Amundsen (a Norwegian explorer), Arctowski (a Polish geologist / oceanographer / meteorologist), Cook (an American doctor / photographer), and Racovitza (a Romanian zoologist / botanist). Here, Emil Racovitza studying microscopic organisms in the lab of the Belgica.

For two years scientists carried out oceanographic and meteorological measurements, mapping the Gerlache Strait, making an inventory of the local terrestrial fauna, taking samples of marine life and collecting minerals, rare mosses, lichens, and tiny grasses. They brought back so many newly discovered species to the Museum that it took nearly fifty years to study them all!

What makes the Ishango bone unique are the notches that appear to be grouped together. On one side, for example, there are groups of three and six (2 x 3), four and eight (2 x 4), and five and ten (2 x 5) notches.

Jean de Heinzelin (right) led the archaeological and geological excavations on the Congo bank of Lake Edward in 1950.

Since 22 October 1987 the Siberian tiger, Panthera tigris altaica, is listed in Annex I of CITES. This annex lists the species that are in danger of extinction, and for which trade regulation is strictest. According to the WWF, there were less than 3200 of these tigers left in the wild in 2010! This specimen was confiscated and entrusted to the Museum by the Antwerp legal authorities in 2006.

In 2006, the Secretariat of the CMS entrusted our institute with preparing and negotiating an agreement for the conservation of gorillas and their natural habitat, in partnership with the Secretariat of GRASP (Great Apes Survival Partnership, a UN initiative for the conservation of great apes). The agreement was opened for signing on 26 October 2007. All ten countries where gorillas live had to sign the agreement before it could be enforced, which has now been done!

Probably originating from the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, it is an ordinary chondrite, in other words, the most abundant kind of meteorite found on Earth. However, its size makes it very special.

The team hunting meteorites in the Nansen Ice Field (East Antarctica), January 2013.