The Steinhardt Museum of Natural History is one of the best natural history museums in the Middle East! Located in Tel Aviv makes it super easy to visit! In fact, it is the largest and most active center in Israel of documentation and science. The museum is focusing on biodiversity research and its varied applications including nature conservation; environmental protection, and agriculture.
The museum is set for discovery; collection development, and care. In addition, the scientific categorization of millions of specimens; documenting the flora and fauna in Israel and the Middle East for thousands of years; as well as the history of humankind and its interactions with the environment. It provides access to the public and the scientific and professional community.
The Museum Collections is holding some 5.5 million items! Accumulated by scientists from Tel Aviv University and other institutions; they were moved to the new museum before it opened to the public in July 2018.
More About The Steinhardt Museum of Natural History
So the museum was designed by Kimmel Eshkolot Architects. The 9,620 sq m five-story building was designed as a “Treasure Box” or “Noah’s Ark”. First thousands of items from the collections; used primarily for basic and applied research; for teaching and training, are now presented to the public as part of exhibitions. In addition, the exhibition spaces comprise over 1,700 square meters in nine themed exhibitions.
- The Great Bird Migration – So on the ceiling of the entrance lobby there are taxidermies of flying birds passing over Israel during the migration season, including water birds, storks, pelicans, and rollers.
- Bugs and Beyond – in the entrance floor and including terrariums with living arthropods as well as taxidermy specimens.
- Life in the Dark – animals that live without daylight
- Urban Nature – wild animals living in the city
- Israel’s Landscapes – several flat dioramas of natural habitats in Israel and their common fauna, including desert, sand & dunes, forests, freshwater, and Mount Hermon’s alpine climate, with stuffed and mounted animals. Entrance ramp to1st floor.
- Form and Function – an exhibition showing how the body of animals is adapted to their function. Includes skeletons and taxidermies of animals such as Velociraptor (replica), giant Aldabra tortoise, Negev gazelle, porcupine, elephant skull, mallard, flying fox, and more. 1st floor.
- The Human Impact – an interactive exhibition showing mainly the negative human impact on the environment (pollution, destruction of habitats, invasive species, over-fishing, etc).
- “The Web of Life” – Interaction Between Animals and Ecosystems – starting with a diorama of the ecosystem created by the Acacia tree, showing inter-relations and connections between different animals, plants, and their ecosystems.
- Whale – a full-size skeleton of a Common minke whale
- Treasures of the Collections – a wide collection of taxidermied birds and mammals, skeletons, and a preserved specimens of fish and marine invertebrates. The historical collection of zoologist Father Ernst Schmitz de, on lease from the German Association of the Holy Land, is presented behind protective glass. It includes the last wild Nile crocodile hunted in 1912 in Ottoman Palestine. 2nd floor.
- What Makes Us Human? – the origin of man: anthropology and skeletons of prehistoric men, showing their evolution from “Lucy” (replica) to modern Homo sapiens. 4th floor.