1 June 2017
I have been to a several museums of natural history during my travels, so a visit to the Natural History Museum (Naturhistoriska riksmuseet) in Stockholm was not high in my list of things to do.
However, since it was near to University of Stockholm, we dropped by for a few hours and I had no regrets! This museum is nice in its own ways, as I would describe in this post.
The museum is located within walking distance from the Universitetet subway station. While visiting this museum, we took the opportunity to also check out the Tunnelbana subway art at the Stadion, Tekniska Högskolan and Universitetet stations.
The museum is housed inside an impressive building. Exhibitions are admission free. Tickets to Cosmonova (Imax Theatre) are 80-110 SEK for adults, 35-50 SEK for children and young people.
The main entrance is on the Ground level with interesting sections such as the Human Journey (showing the evolution of man), Fossils and Evolution (Dinosaurs), Polar Regions and Diversity of Life.
I find the display of various species of butterflies on a large wall rather nice and creative.
We could compare and contrast different characteristics and beauty of the butterflies. Butterflies are some of the most beautiful insects in the world although as a gardener, I dreaded their caterpillars.
We walked through the open jaws of a mock baleen whale at the Polar Regions. This section showcases animal and plant life in the extreme climate of the Antarctic and Artic.
This museum also does a great job in showcasing the stuffed animals in their natural surroundings and action poses. It brought the “life” back into these animals.
It also created good photo opportunities for photographers, except for the ceiling and spot lights.
The Upper Level of the museum featured sections such as Life in Water (Sweden’s waterlife), Swedish Nature, Treasures from the Earth’s Interior and The Human Animal.
Like most natural history museums, there are exhibits on minerals in the “Treasures from the Earth’s Interior” section which I don’t find interesting. It would be challenging to make rocks look interesting, so the museum cannot be faulted.
What was really interesting and unique are the exhibits on Swedish Nature. I particularly like the wolf exhibit showing a pack of wolves and various behaviours of the individuals in the pack as you walked round the circular exhibit.
We could see behaviours like play, aggression, submission, communication or howling and friendliness.
Once again, we could see the stuffed animals in their natural surroundings and action poses.
There is a very realistic display of a fox hunting. A fox could hear its prey hiding in burrows under the snow and uses its body weight and paws to bash through the snow to get its meal. Same technique used by the polar bears to catch seal pups in dens under the Artic ice.
My wife and I enjoyed the interactive displays in the The Human Animal section where we discover which ways humans are like animals and how we differ. For instance, a dog has 220 million smell cells, while a human has around 5 million. So, don’t complain about a smelly dog again. The dog would find humans smelled 40 times worst!
There were also tests on speed, reaction time, and balancing. We did the fun sound tests where we had to identify sounds, determine the direction of a sound and try to hear different frequencies. I must say that we humans are poor in hearing too. We failed miserably!
As nature lovers, we enjoyed our 2.5 hours visit to the Natural History Museum (Naturhistoriska riksmuseet) in Stockholm. Quite educational for both adults and children.
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