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That distinction is essential to understanding the Museum. A visitor expecting something on the scale of London’s Natural History Museum<\/a>, Paris’s Mus\u00e9um national d’Histoire naturelle<\/a> or Berlin’s Museum f\u00fcr Naturkunde may find the Krak\u00f3w museum surprisingly small. However, judged against its actual purpose and heritage, it becomes much more interesting. The Museum provides a glimpse into the world of systematic zoology, palaeontology, collecting and natural history scholarship, while simultaneously attempting to communicate biodiversity and evolution to a general audience. The history of the Museum is one of its greatest attractions. Its origins can be traced to 1865, when the Krak\u00f3w Scientific Society established its Commission of Physiography. A zoological section was established as part of this initiative, and collections began to accumulate. The Museum was initially associated with university premises and was subsequently moved to the building of the Krak\u00f3w Scientific Society in S\u0142awkowska Street. This was an important period in the development of European natural history. During the nineteenth century, museums were not merely places where members of the public went to look at stuffed animals. They were centres of research, classification and documentation. Specimens were collected because they represented geographical distributions, variation within species, new species or particular geological and palaeontological phenomena. Collections were, in effect, physical databases of biodiversity.<\/p>\n\n\n The Krak\u00f3w institution developed within precisely this intellectual tradition. Its early collections included geological material, fossils, plants and animals. A public exhibition opened in 1888, incorporating ornithological collections associated with K. Wodzicki as well as geological and palaeontological material. The Museum subsequently passed through several institutional transformations as Polish scientific organisations changed, eventually becoming part of the network of institutions associated with the Polish Academy of Sciences. The present-day Institute of Systematics and Evolution of Animals (ISEZ PAN) itself was established in 1989, although its institutional ancestry is much older. The Museum remains an integral part of the institute. This gives it an unusual status: the public exhibitions are directly connected to an active scientific institution rather than being an independent attraction whose scientific collections happen to be displayed. That relationship is particularly significant because ISEZ PAN maintains one of the major zoological scientific collections in Poland. The institute currently describes its holdings as containing more than 2.5 million specimens, representing both invertebrates and vertebrates and including numerous mineral and fossil specimens. The collections are therefore vastly larger than what can be seen by an ordinary museum visitor.<\/p>\n\n\n Upon entering the Museum, visitors are met with the European Forest Fauna (Fauna le\u015bna Europy<\/em>) gallery which introduces the diversity of mammals and birds associated with European woodland environments. Rather than attempting to provide an exhaustive representation of European wildlife, the display uses a selection of familiar and more elusive species to illustrate the richness of the continent’s fauna. Among the most prominent specimens are the Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx<\/em>), wolf (Canis lupus<\/em>), brown bear (Ursus arctos<\/em>) and Eurasian eagle-owl (Bubo bubo<\/em>), alongside more widespread species such as roe deer (Capreolus capreolus<\/em>) and wild boar (Sus scrofa<\/em>). The juxtaposition is important educationally, drawing attention to the fact that European forests support both relatively common species and large predators whose distributions have become much more restricted. The Museum explicitly describes the diorama as having an educational purpose, with particular emphasis on younger visitors. One of the strengths of the display is its use of taxidermy to communicate ecological relationships and animal diversity. Large mammals such as the bear, wolf and lynx have an immediate visual impact, while the inclusion of less spectacular but ecologically familiar animals helps to create a broader picture of the European woodland community. In this respect, the gallery reflects an older natural history museum tradition in which specimens are used not merely as objects of aesthetic interest but as tangible representatives of species. The arrangement also encourages visitors to consider the ecological breadth of European forests: these are not simplified landscapes populated only by deer and songbirds, but complex ecosystems capable of supporting substantial carnivores and omnivores. This makes the display particularly effective as an introduction to concepts such as food webs, habitat associations and species coexistence.<\/p>\n\n\n The Insect Biodiversity (Bior\u00f3\u017cnorodno\u015b\u0107 owad\u00f3w<\/em>) gallery provides an accessible introduction to one of the most diverse groups of organisms on Earth. Rather than concentrating on a single geographical region or taxonomic group, the gallery presents specimens belonging to most of the major modern insect orders, arranged systematically within large display cases. Dragonflies, mayflies and orthopterans are displayed alongside hymenopterans and butterflies, while stick insects, bugs and flies demonstrate the extraordinary morphological variety found within Insecta. Specimens originate from different parts of the world, emphasising the global distribution of insect diversity. A separate case devoted to insects from the Krak\u00f3w region provides an important local dimension, reminding visitors that the enormous diversity represented by the international collection is also reflected in the fauna immediately surrounding the Museum. An important strength of the exhibition is that it moves beyond simply demonstrating morphological diversity to explore the different ways in which insects live. Feeding strategies provide one organising theme, with phytophagous insects presented as herbivores, while parasitoids and parasites illustrate relationships in which insects depend upon other organisms. The displays also introduces visitors to social insects and the interactions between insects and plants, including examples of plant damage and galls produced as a consequence of insect activity. This ecological emphasis helps transform what might otherwise be perceived as a collection of visually striking specimens into an introduction to the ecological importance of insects. It demonstrates that insect biodiversity encompasses not merely differences in appearance, but also extraordinary variation in behaviour, life history, feeding, reproduction and relationships with other organisms.<\/p>\n\n\n The gallery is particularly valuable because it also connects the Museum’s public-facing displays with its continuing scientific activities. One of the display cases is devoted to current research on insects undertaken at ISEZ PAN, providing a direct link between the specimens displayed to visitors and the research conducted by scientists associated with the Institute. This is an important characteristic of a research-based natural history museum: specimens are not simply historical objects but part of an active scientific infrastructure. ISEZ PAN continues to undertake research on insect evolution, taxonomy, phylogeography, population genetics and ecology, including work on Orthoptera and saproxylic beetles. The exhibition can therefore be interpreted as a window into the broader scientific role of the Institute’s entomological collections. The dedicated Beetles (Chrz\u0105szcze<\/em>) displays takes this taxonomic focus considerably further. Coleoptera is presented as the most species-rich animal group, and the display demonstrates the remarkable range of forms found within the order, from very small beetles to the spectacularly large goliath beetles. The global scope of the collection is particularly effective in conveying the scale of beetle diversity: visitors encounter specimens representing very different body shapes, sizes, colours and adaptations, demonstrating why beetles have become such an important subject within systematic zoology and entomology. The gallery also includes a large model of a stag beetle, providing a striking three-dimensional interpretation of a beetle’s morphology and offering a useful contrast to the relatively small preserved specimens surrounding it.<\/p>\n\n\n The Molluscs of the World (Mi\u0119czaki \u015awiata<\/em>) gallery is perhaps one of the Museum’s most visually striking displays, presenting molluscs from around the world, including living and extinct cephalopods, bivalves and gastropods. Shells naturally lend themselves to museum display: their often intricate forms, colours and patterns make them immediately attractive objects, while their durability means that they can survive long after the animals that produced them have died. The exhibition makes good use of this combination of aesthetic appeal and scientific value, presenting shells not simply as curiosities but as evidence of the extraordinary diversity of molluscs. Particularly notable specimens include the giant clam (Tridacna gigas<\/em>), one of the world’s largest bivalves, and Nautilus<\/em>, the only living cephalopod possessing an external shell. A substantial selection of marine gastropods further demonstrates the remarkable range of shell morphology found among molluscs. An important aspect of the shell display is its connection with human culture. The Museum notes that shells have long been incorporated into art and culture, providing an opportunity to move beyond their strictly zoological significance. Their use as ornaments, objects of exchange, decorative materials and symbols illustrates the long-standing relationship between humans and marine organisms. This cultural dimension also helps explain why shells have traditionally occupied such an important place in natural history museums and private collections. The Museum’s historical publications reinforce this approach: its 1992 Muszle morskie<\/em> guide included information on the anatomy and biology of gastropods, bivalves and cephalopods, alongside discussion of the use of molluscs in different human cultures. The exhibition can therefore be viewed simultaneously as a display of biological diversity and as an exploration of the changing ways in which people have perceived and utilised marine life.<\/p>\n\n\n The dedicated Crabs (Kraby<\/em>) displays shift the focus from molluscs to the extraordinarily diverse crustaceans, concentrating particularly on the order Decapoda. Crabs (Brachyura) form the largest component of the display, with most of the examples representing marine species from warmer oceanic environments. The gallery uses differences in size, morphology and habitat to demonstrate the diversity of the group. One of its most immediately impressive objects is a model of the Japanese spider crab (Macrocheira kaempferi<\/em>), whose enormous leg span makes it an effective visual introduction to the remarkable extremes of crustacean morphology. Its presentation among smaller crustaceans creates a striking contrast in scale and demonstrates how dramatically body form can vary even within a single broad taxonomic group. The displays also provide an opportunity to consider the ecological and biogeographical breadth of decapods. The inclusion of the red king crab (Paralithodes camtschaticus<\/em>) introduces visitors to a species associated with the cold waters of the Barents Sea, while hermit crabs and the coconut crab (Birgus latro<\/em>) demonstrate that decapods are not restricted to conventional marine habitats. The coconut crab is particularly interesting because of its terrestrial lifestyle and distinctive association with coconut-rich island environments. The Museum also highlights the invasive status of the red king crab, adding a contemporary conservation dimension to what could otherwise be a predominantly taxonomic display. Coral specimens provide a further ecological context, linking crustaceans to the complex marine communities associated with coral ecosystems.<\/p>\n\n\n The Talking to a Stone (Rozmowa z kamieniem<\/em>) gallery provides an attractive introduction to the diversity of minerals and fossils, while also offering a rather more contemplative interpretation of geological material than might be expected in a natural history museum. The gallery consists of mainly of minerals and fossils donated to the Museum by Professor Zbylut Grzywacz, and includes colourful varieties of quartz, agates, geodes, gypsum ‘desert roses’ and different forms of salt. The variety of colours, crystal structures and surface textures makes the display immediately engaging, demonstrating that mineral specimens can possess considerable aesthetic as well as scientific value. In this respect, the gallery continues a long tradition in which geological specimens have been collected and displayed both for their scientific importance and for their intrinsic visual appeal. The exhibition becomes particularly interesting when the minerals are considered alongside the fossils displayed within the same space. These include impressions of animals and plants preserved in stone, some representing organisms that lived hundreds of millions of years ago. The juxtaposition provides a useful distinction between minerals as products of geological processes and fossils as physical records of former life, while simultaneously demonstrating how the two become intertwined within the geological record. A visitor is consequently encouraged to look at a piece of rock not merely as an inert material, but as something capable of preserving evidence of biological and environmental change. This provides a natural bridge between mineralogy, geology and palaeontology, subjects that have historically been closely associated within natural history collections.<\/p>\n\n\n The title of the gallery, Talking to a Stone, also gives the exhibition an unusual literary dimension. The display is dedicated to the poetry of Wis\u0142awa Szymborska, whose work frequently explored the relationship between humans and the non-human world. This connection adds an interpretive layer that is unusual among conventional mineral displays: geological specimens become objects through which visitors can reflect upon deep time, the limits of human knowledge and the distinction between living and non-living nature. Rather than presenting minerals solely through technical descriptions of chemical composition and crystal structure, the exhibition therefore encourages a more imaginative encounter with geological material. It is a reminder that natural history museums can communicate science through cultural as well as strictly scientific frameworks. The Fluorescent Minerals (Minera\u0142y fluorescencyjne<\/em>) gallery takes a more explicitly spectacular approach. Mineral fluorescence is presented as one of the most striking phenomena associated with the mineral world: certain minerals emit visible light when exposed to ultraviolet radiation. The Museum’s display includes fluorite, dolomite, halite and opal, allowing visitors to see how apparently ordinary geological specimens can produce dramatic visual effects under appropriate illumination. The phenomenon provides an especially effective demonstration of the relationship between the physical properties of minerals and the way in which they appear to human observers. Instead of simply looking at specimens in conventional museum lighting, visitors encounter minerals whose appearance changes when the conditions of observation change. You can see a transition of this in the video at the bottom of this post!<\/p>\n\n\n The historical background provided by the Museum adds another dimension to this display. The phenomenon of mineral fluorescence is associated with the British scientist George Gabriel Stokes, who investigated fluorescence during the nineteenth century. Including this scientific history helps transform what might otherwise be experienced simply as a visual curiosity into an example of scientific observation and discovery. Fluorescence demonstrates how apparently simple questions such as why does this mineral glow while another does not?, can lead to investigations of the physical properties of matter. For a museum concerned primarily with systematics and evolution, the display also provides a useful reminder that understanding the natural world depends upon disciplines extending beyond biology, including chemistry, physics and earth sciences. Taken together, the rocks, fossils and mineral displays demonstrate the breadth of the Museum’s natural history remit. Talking to a Stone emphasises geological diversity, deep time, fossils and the cultural interpretation of the natural world. They also have an important historical resonance: the Museum’s origins lie in the Physiographic Commission established in Krak\u00f3w in 1865, whose collections included geological material alongside flora and fauna. Geological specimens were consequently part of the institution’s identity from its earliest days, and the present displays can be viewed as a continuation of that tradition. The Museum’s educational programme reinforces this role by offering dedicated lessons on rocks and minerals and on the formation and significance of fossils. <\/p>\n\n\n The Cave Fauna (Fauna jaskiniowa<\/em>) gallery introduces visitors to one of the most unusual environments in which animals have evolved: the subterranean world. Caves represent highly distinctive habitats in which darkness, restricted food availability and relatively stable environmental conditions create strong ecological pressures. The Museum’s display considers underground environments in Poland as well as elsewhere in the world, demonstrating that cave ecosystems are not simply populated by surface animals that happen to enter caves, but can contain organisms with specialised adaptations to life underground. This makes the gallery particularly effective as an introduction to the ecological and evolutionary consequences of living in environments that differ radically from those experienced by most terrestrial animals. The most striking example is the blind cavefish (Astyanax mexicanus<\/em>) which provides a particularly clear illustration of evolutionary change associated with life in darkness. Cave-dwelling populations of this species have evolved conspicuous differences from their surface-dwelling relatives, most notably the reduction or complete loss of functional eyes and pigmentation. These characteristics provide an accessible demonstration of the principle that evolution does not necessarily produce greater complexity: where vision and pigmentation offer little advantage in permanent darkness, resources can instead be redirected towards other functions. The cavefish therefore provides an excellent case study in natural selection, adaptation and the relationship between an organism’s phenotype and its environment.<\/p>\n\n\n The gallery is not restricted to vertebrates. Among its other inhabitants is the amblypygid (Euphrynichus bacillifer<\/em>), an unusual arachnid whose inclusion helps demonstrate the taxonomic diversity of subterranean and cave-associated fauna. Its appearance may be familiar to visitors from popular culture, as amblypygids were featured in the Harry Potter<\/em> films, but the Museum provides an opportunity to encounter the animal in a scientific rather than fictional context. The inclusion of such an unfamiliar invertebrate alongside cavefish reinforces an important message: adaptation to subterranean environments has occurred repeatedly across very different evolutionary lineages. Caves can consequently be viewed as natural laboratories for investigating convergent ecological pressures and the different biological solutions that organisms have evolved in response to them. The gallery is enhanced by video footage illustrating animal activity in the deep-dark zone of a cave, providing something that preserved specimens alone cannot convey, the behaviour of animals within their natural subterranean environment. This is particularly valuable because cave ecosystems are difficult for visitors to visualise: the absence of light means that many of the characteristics that make these environments biologically distinctive cannot readily be communicated through conventional dioramas. The combination of specimens, interpretation and moving images therefore strengthens the exhibition’s ability to explain adaptation as an ecological process rather than simply presenting unusual-looking animals. A final aspect that is explored is the geology of these caves and the preservation environments they contain for fossils, which are displayed around in cases or in crevices.<\/p>\n\n\n The aquariums containing living fish and amphibians occupy an unusual position within the Museum. Much of the Museum (as we’ve seen so far) is necessarily concerned with preserved material: taxidermied mammals and birds, shells, insects, fossils, minerals and other specimens that allow visitors to examine biodiversity through objects removed from their original environments. The aquariums introduce an entirely different dimension. Here, the organisms remain alive and their movement, behaviour and interactions form part of the exhibition experience. They consequently provide visitors with an opportunity not simply to look at anatomical form, but to observe living animals occupying an aquatic environment. The Water – the Foundation of Life on Earth (Woda \u2013 fundament \u017cycia na Ziemi<\/em>) gallery presents species characteristic of aquatic ecosystems from different parts of the world, particularly rivers and lakes in Africa, South America and Central America. The geographical approach is important because the exhibition does not attempt to recreate a single generic aquarium environment. Instead, its collection of living animals illustrates the diversity of freshwater ecosystems across several continents. This is particularly apparent in the prominence given to cichlids, a remarkably diverse family of freshwater fishes. African rift lakes such as Lakes Malawi, Tanganyika and Victoria are famous for their exceptional cichlid diversity, and cichlids provide an excellent vehicle through which to introduce visitors to evolutionary diversification, ecological specialisation and adaptive radiation. The fish displayed in the Museum can therefore be understood at several levels simultaneously: as individual species with distinctive appearances and behaviours, as representatives of particular geographical faunas, and as examples of broader evolutionary processes. The inclusion of species from South and Central American freshwater systems further emphasises that comparable ecological opportunities have produced diverse fish communities in geographically separate parts of the world. The aquariums consequently complement the Museum’s more traditional taxonomic displays by presenting biodiversity as something that is distributed through space and expressed through living communities rather than simply through collections of specimens.<\/p>\n\n\n Among the most distinctive fish in the exhibition is the Senegal bichir (Polypterus senegalus<\/em>). Its inclusion is especially appropriate in a natural history museum because it possesses a combination of characteristics that can stimulate discussion of fish evolution and adaptation. The elongated body, numerous dorsal finlets and primitive-looking appearance make it immediately recognisable from more familiar aquarium fishes. Its biology also challenges the simplistic distinction between aquatic and terrestrial environments: bichirs are air-breathing fishes capable of using atmospheric oxygen, allowing them to survive under conditions in which dissolved oxygen may be limited. Although the visitor may initially be attracted by its unusual appearance, the specimen provides an opportunity to introduce much broader questions about the evolution of respiratory systems, the diversity of fish lifestyles and the range of adaptations that have evolved within aquatic vertebrates. This illustrates one of the strengths of keeping living animals within a natural history museum: behaviour and biological function can become part of the interpretive experience rather than having to be inferred solely from preserved material. Another visually distinctive inhabitant is the clown knifefish (Chitala chitala<\/em>), a species associated with freshwater systems of South and Southeast Asia. Its strongly laterally compressed body and characteristic undulating movements distinguish it from the more conventionally shaped fishes elsewhere in the exhibition. Such species demonstrate that the apparent uniformity of the basic fish body plan conceals considerable morphological and behavioural diversity. The aquarium setting is particularly effective in this regard because visitors can see the relationship between body form and locomotion. A preserved knifefish could demonstrate its anatomy, but a living animal reveals how that anatomy functions in the water. Movement therefore becomes part of the interpretation. The gallery can consequently encourage visitors to consider why fishes have evolved different body shapes, fin arrangements and swimming strategies, and how these characteristics relate to habitat and lifestyle. <\/p>\n\n\n The presence of barbs and other colourful freshwater fishes adds another important dimension to the displays. Their bright colours and active swimming make the aquariums visually engaging, particularly for younger visitors, but their value extends beyond aesthetics. Colouration in fishes can serve numerous biological functions, including communication, mate attraction, species recognition, camouflage and warning. Observing these characteristics in living animals provides a more immediate experience than viewing specimens mounted in cases. The aquariums therefore have considerable potential for connecting visual observation with questions about behaviour and adaptation. The Museum’s educational programme makes explicit use of this potential: its fish workshop asks participants how fish swim, what fish fear, and how different fish species can be distinguished, while also addressing human responsibility for water resources. Such programming demonstrates that the aquariums are not simply decorative additions to the Museum but form part of a broader educational strategy using living organisms to make biological concepts accessible. The amphibian component is represented particularly memorably an axolotl (Ambystoma mexicanum<\/em>), the familiar aquatic salamander from Mexico. Amphibians are especially appropriate within the gallery because their biology connects aquatic and terrestrial environments. Even fully aquatic salamanders occupy a broader amphibian evolutionary context in which many species have complex relationships with both water and land. Their presence therefore creates an explicit connection with the Museum’s wider herpetological collections, which encompass both living and fossil amphibians and reptiles. The Institute’s scientific collections department specifically identifies amphibians, reptiles and mammals as major vertebrate collection groups.<\/p>\n\n\n The aquarium tanks also have an important role in making ecological concepts tangible. Water can be presented abstractly as a fundamental requirement for life, but living fish swimming through planted or structured aquatic environments demonstrate immediately that water is also a habitat. Different species occupy different ecological niches, interact with their surroundings and exhibit different ways of moving and feeding. This provides an opportunity to introduce concepts such as habitat preference, competition, predation, ecological specialisation and food webs. The geographical range of the exhibition reinforces the point: African, South American and Central American freshwater ecosystems contain different evolutionary histories and species assemblages, yet each demonstrates how aquatic environments can support complex communities. In my mind, the living nature of the exhibits also creates a fundamentally different visitor experience from the Museum’s historic specimen cases. A taxidermied mammal remains unchanged from one visit to the next, whereas an aquarium is inherently dynamic. Fish may hide, interact, feed, swim at different depths or respond to the presence of visitors. This unpredictability can be one of the attractions of living-animal exhibits, particularly for children, because observation becomes an active process rather than a passive inspection of an object. At the same time, this introduces challenges for interpretation. A visitor may see only one aspect of an animal’s behaviour during a short visit, while aquarium conditions necessarily simplify the complexity of a natural ecosystem. The value of the display therefore depends partly on the interpretive material accompanying the animals and on visitors being encouraged to understand the aquariums as carefully managed representations of natural environments rather than complete replicas of them.<\/p>\n\n\n The title Farewell to Africa – Hominisation (Po\u017cegnanie z Afryk\u0105 – Hominizacja) immediately establishes the central theme of the exhibition: the emergence and subsequent evolution of the human lineage. Africa occupies a central position in modern understanding of human evolution, and the gallery uses this geographical starting point to introduce visitors to the long process through which humans became biologically and behaviourally distinct from other primates. The Museum characterises this as a prolonged process of solving a series of adaptive problems, during which humans increasingly diverged in appearance and behaviour from other primates. The title’s reference to ‘farewell’ should therefore be understood not as a single departure or dramatic event, but as a shorthand for a much longer evolutionary history involving changes in anatomy, locomotion, ecology and behaviour. This framing is particularly appropriate within ISEZ PAN, an institution whose wider identity is rooted in systematics and evolutionary biology. Rather than treating humanity as separate from the natural world, the exhibition places our origins within the broader history of biological evolution. One of the most important ideas communicated by the gallery is that human evolution was gradual rather than instantaneous. The Museum explicitly acknowledges that scientists do not know precisely how the earliest members of the human lineage descended from trees and adapted to life on the ground. Several hypotheses have been proposed to explain this transition, reflecting the incomplete nature of the fossil record and the difficulty of reconstructing behaviour from anatomical remains. What is more securely established is that the process was slow and involved successive biological changes over a considerable period. This is an important distinction because popular accounts of human evolution can sometimes give the impression of a straightforward progression from an ape-like ancestor to modern humans. The exhibition instead encourages visitors to appreciate evolution as a branching, contingent and imperfect process, in which adaptations accumulated over generations rather than being produced according to a predetermined trajectory. The Museum’s emphasis on uncertainty is therefore scientifically valuable: it demonstrates that evolutionary biology involves testing competing explanations against physical evidence rather than simply reconstructing a fixed sequence of events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The transition from an arboreal to a more terrestrial existence provides a particularly important theme within the exhibition. Moving from life in trees to increased activity on the ground would have involved profound changes in locomotion, habitat use and behaviour. Bipedalism is consequently central to understanding hominisation because habitual upright walking fundamentally altered the anatomy and ecology of our ancestors. Changes in the pelvis, lower limbs, feet and vertebral column can be interpreted as components of this broader transformation, while freeing the hands from their primary role in locomotion created new possibilities for manipulating objects and using tools. The evolutionary significance of these changes lies not in any single anatomical feature but in their interaction. The human lineage did not simply acquire ‘human’ characteristics one at a time; rather, different anatomical and behavioural traits evolved at different rates and were subsequently incorporated into increasingly complex adaptive strategies. The exhibition provides an opportunity to consider this process as an example of evolutionary adaptation to changing ecological circumstances. The gallery also encourages reflection upon the relationship between biological and behavioural evolution. Human distinctiveness cannot be explained adequately by anatomy alone. Tool use, changes in diet, social behaviour, communication and increasing technological complexity all contributed to the trajectory of hominin evolution. At the same time, these characteristics should not be interpreted as appearing suddenly with the emergence of Homo sapiens<\/em>. Evidence for tool manufacture and use predates our own species, while several extinct hominin lineages possessed combinations of anatomical and behavioural characteristics that challenge simple distinctions between ‘human’ and ‘ape’. This makes hominisation a particularly appropriate subject for a museum devoted to evolutionary science. The exhibition can encourage visitors to see human evolution as part of a much larger evolutionary experiment in which several hominin lineages existed, adapted and ultimately disappeared. Modern humans are therefore the surviving branch of a much more diverse evolutionary history rather than the inevitable endpoint of a linear progression.<\/p>\n\n\n The exhibition also raises the particularly interesting question of what makes humans distinctive. A natural history museum is well placed to approach this question because it can place humans alongside other primates rather than treating humanity as biologically exceptional from the outset. Differences in posture, locomotion, skull morphology, dentition, hand anatomy and brain development can be considered within the comparative framework of primate evolution. Yet the exhibition’s subject also makes it possible to explore characteristics that are more difficult to reduce to anatomy, including cumulative culture, technology, language and social organisation. The evolutionary significance of these traits lies partly in their ability to modify the environment in which natural selection operates. Humans increasingly became capable of changing their surroundings rather than merely responding to them. This creates a feedback between biological evolution and cultural evolution that is one of the most distinctive aspects of the human story. It is always fun finding out about where we came from as a species, and how different museums convey this to their visitors.<\/p>\n\n\n The Pleistocene Megafauna (Megafauna plejstoce\u0144ska<\/em>) gallery is built around one of the most extraordinary natural history specimens in Europe: the woolly rhinoceros (Coelodonta antiquitatis<\/em>) from Starunia. The animal lived approximately 40,000 years ago, during the Late Pleistocene, when much of Eurasia supported cold-adapted communities of large mammals. The species ranged across a vast area, from the Pyrenees in western Europe to Siberia, and, alongside the woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius<\/em>), was among the largest herbivores of the Ice Age. An adult woolly rhinoceros could reach approximately 2 m in height, exceed 5 m in length and weigh around 3.5 tonnes. Its massive body, thick coat and powerful horns were adaptations to the demanding climatic conditions of the Pleistocene. The animal is therefore an exceptionally effective representative of the Ice Age megafauna, encapsulating in a single species the themes of climatic adaptation, extinction, palaeoecology and the changing environments of prehistoric Eurasia. What makes the Starunia animal extraordinary, however, is not simply its age or size but its exceptional state of preservation. The specimen is a young female that died approximately 40,000 years ago and was discovered on 23 October 1929 at Starunia, in what is now western Ukraine, approximately 100 km southeast of Lviv. Unlike the fragmented bones that constitute the majority of Pleistocene mammal discoveries, the Starunia rhinoceros survived with its skin and other soft tissues, including internal organs. The preservation was made possible by the unusual geological conditions at the site, particularly deposits of brine and earth wax, or ozokerite, which acted as natural preservatives. The Museum describes the specimen as the only woolly rhinoceros currently displayed in the world preserved in its entirety with skin and soft tissues, making it one of the most valuable natural history specimens in the Museum’s collections.<\/p>\n\n\n The history of the specimen is itself an important part of the exhibition’s significance. Its discovery transformed Starunia into a site of considerable palaeontological importance and resulted in the recovery of material that extended far beyond the rhinoceros itself. Plant remains, insects and small vertebrates were found in association with the animal, providing evidence about the environment in which the rhinoceros lived and died. Such associated material is crucial because a large mammal skeleton alone provides only limited information about its former surroundings. Pollen, plant remains, insects and smaller vertebrates can collectively help reconstruct vegetation, climate and ecological conditions. The Starunia discovery therefore represents much more than the recovery of an exceptional individual animal: it provides a snapshot of a Pleistocene ecosystem in the Podkarpacie region. In this respect, the rhinoceros acts as a gateway into palaeoecology, allowing visitors to appreciate how scientists reconstruct vanished environments from multiple forms of evidence. The Museum’s presentation of the rhinoceros is particularly effective because it does not rely upon the preserved body alone. The collection includes the mounted rhinoceros specimen, an original skeleton and a plaster cast showing the position in which the animal was found. The reconstruction of the animal’s external appearance was undertaken according to the concept of Professor Jan Stach in 1929, using authentic skin removed from the recovered specimen. A skeleton was subsequently mounted under Stach’s supervision in 1948, while the plaster cast preserves a record of the animal’s original position at Starunia. These three forms of representation provide different kinds of information. The preserved skin conveys the physical reality and exceptional preservation of the individual; the skeleton reveals its underlying anatomy; and the cast connects the specimen to the circumstances of its discovery. Together they demonstrate how museum objects can document both an extinct organism and the scientific processes through which knowledge about it has been constructed.<\/p>\n\n\n There is also considerable interpretive value in the fact that the specimen is incomplete despite its extraordinary preservation. The Museum notes that the hooves and horns did not survive, while hair remains only on relatively small fragments of skin. This is a useful reminder that even exceptional fossil preservation is rarely absolute. Visitors encountering the rhinoceros may initially perceive it as almost impossibly complete, yet the missing structures reveal the selective nature of preservation and the subsequent processes involved in preparing and reconstructing a palaeontological specimen. The use of authentic skin in the reconstruction is particularly significant because it distinguishes the exhibit from a conventional taxidermic recreation. What appears to be a complete animal is instead the product of a combination of original material, reconstruction and scientific interpretation. This makes the display an interesting case study in the relationship between specimen, reconstruction and representation within natural history museums. The rhinoceros is complemented by the remains of other characteristic members of the Pleistocene megafauna, most notably the woolly mammoth and cave bear (Ursus spelaeus<\/em>). The woolly mammoth provides an obvious ecological counterpart to the rhinoceros. Both were large herbivorous mammals adapted to cold Pleistocene environments, and both have become emblematic of the Ice Age. The cave bear, by contrast, represents a different ecological role and introduces visitors to one of the major Pleistocene carnivorous or omnivorous mammals associated with European cave deposits. Presenting these animals together helps establish that the Pleistocene was not simply an age of individual giant mammals but supported diverse communities of large vertebrates. The juxtaposition also allows the rhinoceros to be interpreted within a broader ecological assemblage rather than as an isolated curiosity. The Museum’s permanent exhibition consequently uses a relatively small number of highly recognisable taxa to evoke the much larger and more complex Pleistocene ecosystems of Eurasia.<\/p>\n\n\n The exhibition also provides an opportunity to consider adaptation to Pleistocene climates. Woolly rhinoceroses possessed dense coats of long, coarse hair that reduced heat loss during severe winters, while their body proportions and substantial mass were suited to cold environments. Their heads were equipped with two powerful horns, which were presumably important in feeding and in interactions between individuals. The species’ diet consisted primarily of grasses and lichens, placing it within the herbivore community of the Pleistocene steppe-tundra environments. These features make the rhinoceros an accessible example of the relationship between morphology, physiology and environment. Rather than presenting the Ice Age merely as a chronological period, the exhibit can be read as demonstrating how organisms were shaped by its climatic conditions. The animal thus provides a tangible example of adaptation long after the environmental pressures that shaped it have disappeared. The Starunia locality also has a compelling geographical and historical dimension. Today the site lies in Ukraine, whereas the specimen is housed in Krak\u00f3w, Poland. This reflects the complex history of Central and Eastern European natural history collecting during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Museum acquired the rhinoceros in 1930, and it subsequently survived the disruption of the Second World War, when the most valuable collections were moved to safer parts of the Museum building. The rhinoceros therefore possesses several layers of significance: it is a palaeontological specimen, a record of a vanished ecosystem, an important object in the history of Polish science and a survivor of the turbulent history of European museums during the twentieth century. The Museum’s own institutional history records the acquisition of the Starunia rhinoceros in 1930 and its subsequent preservation as one of the institution’s most important specimens.<\/p>\n\n\n The importance attached to the specimen is also reflected in its status as a symbol of ISEZ PAN itself. The Museum notes that the silhouette of the rhinoceros rapidly became associated with the Institute and that the specimen attracts visitors from around the world, including visitors from outside scientific circles. Its international profile was demonstrated in 2019, when the Museum received Japan’s Prince Akishino and Princess Kiko, who specifically requested to see the Starunia rhinoceros. Such attention illustrates how a single museum specimen can become an institutional emblem (just like Dippy at the Natural History Museum in London). For visitors, however, the specimen’s greatest value may lie in its ability to make deep time tangible. Forty thousand years can be an almost incomprehensible period when presented as an abstract number, whereas standing before an actual animal (or a cast of it) that lived during that period creates a much more immediate connection with the Pleistocene.<\/p>\n\n\n The World of Reptiles (\u015awiat gad\u00f3w<\/em>) gallery was perhaps my favourite part of the Museum, which provides an extensive introduction to reptile diversity by bringing together both contemporary and fossil representatives of the group. The Museum divides the exhibition into several modules according to geographical areas of occurrence, with the specimens presented within settings designed to evoke their natural habitats. This approach gives the gallery a distinctly ecological character. Rather than encountering a succession of isolated specimens, visitors are encouraged to associate reptiles with the environmental conditions in which they occur. Such an approach is particularly appropriate for a natural history museum because it places taxonomy within a wider biological context: species have particular distributions because of their evolutionary histories, ecological requirements and adaptations to climate and habitat. The gallery therefore provides a useful complement to the Museum’s more narrowly taxonomic collections, while retaining the visual impact traditionally associated with natural history exhibitions. One of the gallery’s most immediate attractions is its presentation of reptilian diversity at extremes of body size. Particularly prominent are the green anaconda (Eunectes murinus<\/em>) and reticulated python (Python reticulatus<\/em>), both presented as dermoplasts. The Museum identifies the green anaconda as the world’s thickest snake and the reticulated python as the world’s longest snake. These specimens provide an effective way of communicating the enormous size that snakes can attain and give visitors an appreciation of their morphology that is difficult to convey through photographs or conventional illustrations. The scale of the animals also provides an opportunity to discuss how very large snakes interact with their environments. The anaconda is strongly associated with aquatic and wetland environments, whereas the reticulated python occupies a much wider range of habitats across tropical Asia. Their juxtaposition consequently demonstrates that similar overall body plans can be associated with different ecological lifestyles.<\/p>\n\n\n The use of dermoplasts is particularly significant in a museum context. A dermoplast is a three-dimensional preparation intended to preserve the external form of an animal, allowing visitors to appreciate its proportions, surface characteristics and posture much more effectively than a conventional flat specimen. This is especially valuable for reptiles because their morphology is often central to understanding their ecology. The elongated body of a snake, for example, is immediately apparent when the animal is displayed at full scale, while the arrangement of scales provides an opportunity to consider the relationship between skin structure and function. The exhibition makes explicit use of this educational potential through a dedicated section explaining the structure of reptile skin, thereby linking the large display specimens with anatomical information. This combination of whole-animal preparation and focused educational interpretation is one of the gallery’s more effective features. Reptiles have always been tricky to prepare using other methods and I’m sure we can all think of a prepared snake that looks terrible, with humorous glass eyes to boast. <\/p>\n\n\n The gallery’s inclusion of fossil reptiles is particularly valuable because it prevents the exhibition from treating reptiles solely as a modern zoological group. The most striking palaeontological object is an approximately 1.5-metre-long skull of a Cretaceous crocodile of the genus Steneosaurus<\/em>. A fossil skull of this scale immediately changes the temporal perspective of the exhibition. Visitors move from living snakes and other reptiles into a world in which crocodile-line reptiles occupied ancient environments millions of years ago. The specimen also provides an opportunity to compare extinct and living crocodilian morphology, while demonstrating how fossil material can reveal animals that have no exact modern equivalent. Within the context of the Museum as a whole, this is particularly appropriate because ISEZ PAN combines contemporary zoological research with palaeontological investigation. The fossil reptile consequently forms a bridge between the Museum’s living-fauna displays and its extensive palaeontological collections. The geographical organisation of the exhibition is also useful for communicating biogeography. Reptiles are strongly influenced by temperature, moisture and habitat structure, and their global distributions reflect both present environmental conditions and historical evolutionary events. Presenting specimens in relation to areas of occurrence encourages visitors to consider why particular reptiles are found in tropical forests, wetlands, deserts or other environments. This complements the Museum’s other ecological galleries, such as the European Forest Fauna display. Taken together, these exhibitions establish a recurring theme throughout the Museum: biodiversity is inseparable from geography. A species is not simply an organism with a particular appearance; it occupies a particular ecological and geographical setting. The reptile gallery therefore contributes to the Museum’s broader narrative about the relationship between organisms and their environments.<\/p>\n\n\n The educational section is an especially useful component of the exhibition because it moves away from the spectacular large animals and towards the biology of reptiles themselves. Visitors can examine the structure of reptile skin, see a snake’s shed skin, and investigate a leopard tortoise (Stigmochelys pardalis<\/em>) shell and tortoise egg. These objects provide tangible examples of structures that visitors might otherwise encounter only in diagrams or photographs. The inclusion of a snake’s slough, for example, demonstrates that reptile skin is not simply a static protective covering but a tissue that is periodically replaced. Similarly, the tortoise shell illustrates one of the most distinctive structural adaptations within the reptile lineage, while the egg provides an opportunity to consider reproduction and embryonic development. By presenting these objects separately from the large whole-animal preparations, the Museum encourages visitors to examine reptiles at several biological scales, from the complete organism to individual anatomical structures. The tortoise material is particularly effective because shells are among the most recognisable structures associated with reptiles. In combination, these objects help prevent the gallery from becoming dominated by the spectacle of large snakes. Instead, they introduce visitors to the diversity of reptilian form and function. This is important pedagogically because the term ‘reptile’ encompasses animals with very different morphologies and lifestyles, including snakes, lizards, crocodilians and turtles. The educational display makes that diversity more explicit than would be possible through the large specimens alone.<\/p>\n\n\n There are also live invertebrate displays within the Museum too. However, live-animal displays also create ethical and welfare responsibilities that are greater than those associated with preserved specimens. Thankfully though, they seem to be given plenty of space and only those species with the minimal of husbandry requirements are kept on display. The Museum participates in major Polish science and cultural events including Museum Night, Biology Night and the Ma\u0142opolska Researchers’ Night, while also hosting public lectures and educational activities. It has organised more than 100 temporary exhibitions since the opening of its present premises and has produced travelling exhibitions shown elsewhere in Poland. This demonstrates that the Museum is not simply a static collection of old cases. The relationship with ISEZ PAN is especially valuable here. The institute conducts research in systematics, phylogenetics, palaeontology, biogeography, ecology, zooarchaeology and related fields. This means the Museum has access to a substantial pool of scientific expertise. Its educational potential is therefore enormous. A particularly attractive feature for families and school groups is the diversity of subject matter. Within a relatively compact museum, visitors can encounter mammoths, rhinoceroses, molluscs, insects, reptiles, cave animals, tropical ecosystems, fossils and minerals. The Museum can consequently support teaching across biology, geology, evolution, ecology and archaeology.<\/p>\n\n\n The Museum’s location is another important part of the experience. The former bathhouse building gives the Museum a more intimate atmosphere than the grand institutional architecture of Europe’s largest natural history museums. The building itself is part of the story. This creates a layered visitor experience: nineteenth-century scientific collections are displayed within a historic urban building that has itself passed through several uses. There is consequently something slightly old-fashioned about the Museum, and that is both a strength and a weakness. For some visitors, the atmosphere will be charming. The cases, specimens, dioramas and traditional presentation evoke the history of collecting and natural history museums. For others, particularly visitors accustomed to interactive science centres, the displays may appear dated or relatively modest. These differences are useful because they reveal a problem of expectation rather than necessarily a problem with the Museum itself. Visitors arriving expecting a huge metropolitan natural history museum may be disappointed. Visitors approaching it as a specialist zoological museum with historically important collections are much more likely to appreciate it. The presence of living animals has historically been another feature of the Museum. Aquatic displays and small living exhibits provide a different experience from preserved specimens. They can help communicate behaviour and ecological relationships that taxidermy cannot. The contemporary natural history museum increasingly needs to demonstrate not only scientific value but also exemplary animal husbandry. Clear information about the provenance, welfare and purpose of living exhibits would strengthen visitor confidence. This is an area where the Museum could potentially benefit from greater transparency and contemporary interpretation.<\/p>\n\n\n Perhaps the most important point to make in any serious review is that the public museum should not be confused with the entire ISEZ PAN collection. The exhibition galleries contain only a tiny fraction of the institute’s holdings. The scientific collections include millions of specimens and thousands of type specimens. A 2021 account of the collections described approximately 2.13 million specimens at that time, including around 4,950 type specimens and substantial collections of fossil invertebrates and amber inclusions. The institute’s current website now describes its holdings as exceeding 2.5 million specimens. This distinction changes the way the Museum should be judged. It is not a museum whose principal purpose is to display everything it owns. That would be impossible. Rather, it is a portal into a research collection. For specialists, this is tremendously significant. Scientific collections preserve evidence that can be re-examined decades or centuries after the original collection event. A specimen collected in the nineteenth century can potentially be reidentified using modern taxonomy, examined for morphological variation, sampled for molecular work where appropriate, or used in historical studies of biodiversity and distribution. In this sense, the Museum represents something much larger than its exhibition floor.<\/p>\n\n\n Compared with the Natural History Museum in London, the Museum in Krak\u00f3w is tiny. Compared with the monumental Museum f\u00fcr Naturkunde in Berlin, it lacks the architectural scale and giant public galleries. It also lacks the extensive immersive technologies increasingly found in contemporary natural history museums. But this comparison can be misleading. Large national museums tend to have multiple missions: mass tourism, public education, research, national heritage and large-scale events. ISEZ PAN’s museum has a much more specialised identity. Its greatest strength is specificity. The museum is deeply connected with zoological systematics, evolution and Polish scientific heritage. Its collections are not simply assembled to entertain visitors. They exist because generations of scientists collected, described, compared and studied organisms. That gives the Museum a distinctive scholarly character. The Museum’s principal strengths can be summarised fairly simply. First, it has an exceptionally strong scientific pedigree. Its history reaches back to 1865, placing it within the formative period of Polish institutional natural history. Second, the underlying collections are of major scientific significance. The millions of specimens, type material and palaeontological collections make ISEZ PAN an important research institution. Third, the Museum contains several genuinely exceptional exhibits. The Starunia woolly rhinoceros, and Pleistocene mammoth material, and unusual fossil and zoological specimens provide considerable depth. Fourth, the diversity of the galleries is impressive. Visitors can move from Pleistocene mammals to molluscs, insects, reptiles, cave fauna, tropical ecosystems and minerals. Fifth, the Museum retains an old-fashioned natural history character that can be increasingly difficult to find in heavily redesigned modern institutions. Finally, its location in central Krak\u00f3w makes it accessible as part of a wider visit to the city.<\/p>\n\n\n The same characteristics that make the museum appealing can also limit it. The most obvious issue is scale. Visitors expecting a two- or three-hour museum experience may find that they can complete the Museum much more quickly. The Museum could also benefit from a more unified interpretive narrative. Its individual displays are interesting, but the relationship between systematics, evolution, biodiversity, palaeontology and conservation could be made more explicit. There is also considerable opportunity for digital interpretation. The Museum’s underlying collections are ideal candidates for digitisation. Online specimen databases, high-resolution images, interactive maps and virtual access to type specimens could allow the institution to communicate the scale of its collections far more effectively. Another opportunity would be to make the scientists and collectors behind the specimens more visible. Natural history museums can sometimes give the impression that specimens simply appeared in cases. In reality, every specimen has a history: someone collected it, identified it, prepared it, catalogued it and preserved it. The Museum is particularly well placed to tell that story.<\/p>\n\n\n The Muzeum Przyrodnicze Instytutu Systematyki i Ewolucji Zwierz\u0105t PAN is not the largest natural history museum in Krak\u00f3w, let alone Europe. Nor does it attempt to compete with the monumental scale of London’s, Berlin’s or Paris’s great national collections. That is not its purpose. Its importance lies in its scientific identity, historical continuity and collections. Behind the relatively compact public exhibition is a vast research infrastructure containing millions of zoological and palaeontological specimens. The Museum also possesses something increasingly valuable: a tangible connection with the traditional practice of natural history. Specimens are still recognisable as specimens. For anyone with a serious interest in zoology, palaeontology, entomology, evolution, taxonomy, natural history collections or the history of science, however, the Museum becomes much more significant. Its greatest achievement is perhaps that it makes a relatively small public space stand in for a much larger scientific world. That combination of history, research and public exhibition gives the museum a distinctive identity. It may not provide the spectacular scale of Europe’s great national natural history museums, but it offers something different: an intimate encounter with a living scientific collection and with the long tradition of collecting and studying the diversity of life. Casual visitors should allow for a relatively short visit and approach it as a specialist museum rather than a major blockbuster attraction. For anyone who appreciates the scientific value of specimens, however, its modest size is almost beside the point. The real museum extends far beyond the exhibition cases, into the research collections of ISEZ PAN and a tradition of Polish natural history scholarship that began more than 160 years ago. It it certainly worth playing the 30 z\u0142oty (~\u00a36) to have a wander and learn more about the natural world!<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/stevenallain.co.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Muzeum-Przyrodnicze-Instytutu-Systematyki-i-Ewolucji-7.jpeg?resize=1000%2C750&ssl=1\")
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