Naturalis

 At last... our first visit to Naturalis Biodiversity Center.

One of the world's top five natural history collections

I noticed the impressive architecture...

but I was dying and focused to get a good glimpse of the vast collection.

Taxidermy is an art form by itself.  Have a look at this Caracal...

Dinosaur Era gallery 

Life gallery 

The aardvark is one of my many favourites...

My favourite place to be is Live Science :

a fraction of the huge ladybug collection by Oskar and Cécile Vogt...

Lot of drawers with specimen...

A giant deer molar just like the one the kenderman recently found at the beach...

Closing time... two of the last ones to leave... but we'll be back!

Weekend!

I'm really sorry for my absence... I've been too busy. 

But the specimen pots have been washed on the outside.

Some of them can use a good clean on the inside as well.

For now I'm wishing you a nice and tranquil weekend!

Material Matters

Last Sunday one of my wishes came true!

If only it could have been my main wish for
world peace and fair distribution of wealth...
(deep sigh)

For almost two years I've been "dreaming" about a
way too expensive set of antique specimen jars...

It's origin, we've been told,
an antique set of specimen jars from the university of Namen
with a content of special cacti...

Finally I "haggled" a much better price, only half of the original price, 

suggesting I was an antiques dealer myself (big smile)...

Sometimes patience can be worth while!

The jars being in desperate need of a good cleaning...

You can see an earlier picture of the set in the antiques shop here