Museum of Evolution of Polish Academy of Sciences

The Museum of Evolution of Polish Academy of Sciences (Polish: Muzeum Ewolucji Instytutu Paleobiologii Polskiej Akademii Nauk) is a special place in Warsaw, Poland. It helps people learn about how life on Earth has changed over millions of years. It is part of the Muzeum i Instytut Zoologii or Zoology Museum and the Instytut Paleobiologii or Paleobiology Institute.

The museum is inside the famous Palace of Culture and Science, a big building in the city. Visitors can see how different animals and plants have changed over time. This helps everyone, especially children, learn about nature in a fun way. The Museum of Evolution is important for scientists and learners.

History

In the Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw, a professor named Zofia Kielan-Jaworowska put together an exhibition called "Dinosaurs of the Gobi Desert" in 1968. The exhibition showed discoveries from Polish-Mongolian missions to the Gobi Desert.

The Museum of Evolution was started in 1984. In 1985, people could see the "Evolution on Land" exhibition. Zofia Kielan-Jaworowska made it. It had many fossils, including ones from Mongolia, and also insects and birds.

In 2001, a new display about ancient amphibians and reptiles from Krasiejów near Opole opened. In 2003, a model of the Australopithecus specimen called "Lucy" was added. In 2005, new dinosaur skeletons were put on show. In 2009, the museum grew to mark the 150th anniversary of an important book by Charles Darwin.

Permanent Exhibition

Many dinosaur skeletons on display were found during trips to the Gobi Desert in the 1960s and 1970s. One huge skeleton of a plant-eating dinosaur called Opisthocoelicaudia fills the main hall. Near it, you can see bones from other dinosaurs, early horned and armoured dinosaurs, and tiny skulls of small mammals from the same time.

The museum also shows big meat-eating dinosaurs from the Gobi Desert, including two models of Tarbosaurus, a relative of Tyrannosaurus rex. These models show how our ideas about dinosaurs have changed over time. You can also see fossils from Poland, like a very old frog skeleton found near Cracow, and casts of flying reptiles called pterosaurs from Germany.