Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Blue Zone
In
Dinosaurs
, a raised walkway leads straight to the highlight for many kids, the grisly
life-sized animatronic dinosaur tableau, currently a roaring
Tyrannosaurus rex
. he rest
of the displays are less theatrical and more informative, with massive-jawed skeletons
and more conventional models.
The old-fashioned
Mammals
section is filled with stuffed animals and plastic
models and dominated by a full-sized model of a blue whale juxtaposed with its
skeleton. It usually goes down well enough with younger children, but it's showing
its age somewhat.
18
Green Zone
Investigate Mon-Fri 2.30-5pm, Sat & Sun 11am-5pm; during school holidays daily 11am-5pm
The other firm favourite with kids is the arthropod room, known as
Creepy Crawlies
.
Filled with giant models of bugs, arachnids and crustaceans, plus displays on spiders,
mites and other unlovely creatures, it's here that you'll find the museum's only live
exhibits, a colony of leaf-cutter ants from Trinidad, which feed on a fungus that they
grow on the leaves they've gathered.
Meanwhile down in the basement is the excellent futuristic
Investigate
, aimed at
children aged 7 to 14 - in school term time, public visits are restricted to the afternoon
and at busy times, you may need to obtain a timed ticket. Kids get to choose a tray of
specimens and then play at being scientists, using microscopes, scales, a computer and
various tools of the trade to examine and catalogue the items before them. There are
one or two simpler hands-on exhibits too, as well as several plant species to look at.
Up on the first floor,
Minerals
features serried ranks of glass cabinets, culminating
in a darkened chamber called
The Vault
. Here, the cream of the museum's rocks
reside: a meteorite from Mars, a golden nugget weighing over 1000lb, one of the
largest uncut emeralds in the world and the Star of South Africa, found in 1869,
which triggered the South Africa diamond rush. Don't miss the 1300-year-old slice
of
Giant Sequoia
, on the top floor, and while you're there, admire the view down
onto the Central Hall, the moulded monkeys clinging to the arches and the ceiling
panels depicting plant specimens.
Orange Zone
Little visited, compared to the rest of the museum, the
Orange Zone
is also known as
the
Darwin Centre
, dominated by the giant concrete
Cocoon
, encased within the
centre's glass-fronted atrium like a giant egg and home to over twenty million
specimens. Visitors can take the lift to the seventh floor and enter the Cocoon to learn
more about the history of the collection, about taxonomy and the research and field
trips the museum funds.
In the nearby
Zoology spirit building
, you can view a small selection of bits and bobs
pickled in glass jars, everything from silkworm larvae and a peculiar venomous snail that's
killed more than one unwary collector, to a jar of parasitic worms from a sperm whale's
stomach and a brown rat found during the building's construction. To join one of the
guided tours
that take you behind the scenes and allow you to talk to the museum's
scientists, you need to book on the day at the information desk in Central Hall.
Red Zone
If you enter the museum from Exhibition Road, you enter the vast, darkened hall of
the
Red Zone
, with the solar system and constellations writ large on the walls. Boarding
the central escalator will take you through a partially formed globe to the top floor and
The Power Within
, an exhibition on volcanoes and earthquakes. The most popular
section is the 1995 Kobe earthquake simulator, where you can enter a mock-up of a
Japanese supermarket and see the soy sauce bottles wobble, while watching an in-store
video of the real event. Despite the museum's protestations, the whole thing seems in
