Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, January 14, 2016 Title: Come! Get up close and personal with incredible ancient creatures
Xinhua News Agency reporters Dong Ruifeng and Wen Jinghua
A two-storey fossil specimen of a dinosaur stands in the center of the exhibition hall, as if with the breath of hundreds of millions of years ago.
Beijing, Outside Xizhimen, China Paleozoological Museum. Those incredible ancient creatures are "awakened" here one by one, presenting a magical evolutionary journey to the world.
Starting with ancient fish, experiencing the world of amphibians, traveling through the once thriving dinosaur kingdom, to mammals all over the planet, until ancient apes evolved into Homo sapiens – a variety of fossils take turns to appear, outlining the origin and evolution of vertebrates.
"We have more than 400,000 specimens in our institute and more than 1,000 specimens on display in the museum." Wang Yuan, director of the China Paleozoological Museum, introduced that if you want to tell the profound knowledge in an easy-to-understand way, you need to make trade-offs, and the final specimens are very story and meaningful.
A museum is a physical history.
Founded by the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the China Paleozoological Museum is a world-famous professional museum of paleontology, focusing on the fossils of various vertebrates investigated and collected by generations of scientists in China for nearly a century.
The vertebrae, which are vital to humans, evolved from a fish the size of a thumb? In the ancient fish exhibition area, jawless fish with armor, primitive shield fish, cartilaginous fish, teleost fish... Fish fossils at various stages of evolution silently tell the story of life changes hundreds of millions of years ago.
The earth's crust changes, the vicissitudes of the sea, and some fish land from the water and become amphibians. However, due to the large number of cartilage of amphibians and the fact that they live in a humid environment, the corpses decay quickly after death, and it is difficult to preserve them as complete fossils - the specimens displayed in the amphibian exhibition area are all treasures in the fossils.
In the paleontological exhibition area, in addition to a variety of dinosaur fossil specimens, there are also the largest freshwater turtle fossil found in China - Nanxiong turtle, a marine reptile known as the Mesozoic sea monster, and the ancestor of mammals - mammal-like reptiles.
The ancient birds exhibition area exhibits bird fossils from various geological periods, including one of the earliest known birds with a beak in the world, the world's most famous fossil bird besides Archaeopteryx, the Confucius bird, and the world's most primitive bird, the Rehe bird, and many other famous fossils.
In the Ancient Mammals Gallery, the viewer can trace how this great family, which is now so diverse on earth, was originally insignificant.
The history of human evolution is even more fascinating. After the emergence of human subfamilys, many species have evolved, such as Australopithecus, Homo sapiens, Homo erectus, etc., but Homo sapiens, a species of modern humans, that is, modern humans, that appeared more than 200,000 years ago, defeated other ancient humans and became the only representatives that survived.
From the specimen of the Ratimai fish, which is called "living fossil", to the Xu's Lufeng dragon, which is known as the "first dragon in China", to the skeleton of the Yellow River elephant written in China's primary school textbooks, a precious collection of cultural relics has witnessed the evolution of life on earth.
In order to let more people understand the scientists' exploration of ancient times, the China Paleozoological Museum not only "introduced" the audience through careful curation, but also constantly innovated ideas to make the exhibits "go out".
With their assistance, the middle school campus has its own fossil exhibition museum - the first fossil museum in China for students to excavate fossils was established in Beijing No. 10 Middle School.
Song Zhenzhong, vice principal of Beijing No. 10 Middle School, introduced that the school has opened practical courses such as fossil restoration, paleontological restoration painting, and paleontological restoration sculpture, established a student fossil restoration center, and explored and developed a series of practical activities courses of "Footprints of Life", which greatly improved students' scientific literacy and comprehensive practical ability.
Recently, Beijing No. 10 Middle School also plans to bring the exhibition of the results of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau Paleontology Expedition of the China Paleozoological Museum into the campus, so that more teenagers can walk into the ancient world under the snowy mountains and appreciate the magnificent historical beauty of the plateau.
The Children's Encyclopedia Picture Book of the China Paleozoological Museum is the first set of children's popular science picture books written to children since the establishment of the museum, and has published 2 volumes - "Exploring the Kingdom of Ancient Fish" and "Tracing Chinese Dinosaurs".
Zhang Ping, deputy director of the China Paleozoological Museum, introduced that the picture book arranges and sorts out China's unique prehistoric animals in the evolutionary order from fish to humans, leading young readers to witness 3.8 billion years of life history, and helping children build a comprehensive knowledge system covering biology, geography and history.
"By doing science popularization of paleontology, cultivating children's curiosity and letting more children understand what science is, this will also become an intrinsic innovation driver for the development of disciplines and museums." Zhang Ping said. (End)