Galleries of paleontology and comparative anatomy

Last weekend we went to the galleries of paleontology and comparative anatomy in the jardins des plantes.  The galleries are only one of many buildings in the jardins des plantes which are devoted to natural history and evolution.  There is even a small zoo in the gardens.  It would take a long time to see everything there.  I think the galleries, which along with the superb building they are in date to 1898, are one of my favourite places that we have seen so far.  There is a floor devoted to dinosaur skeletons, which is cool.  But what turned out surprisingly to be the most interesting were the modern skeletons.  Thousands and thousands of them.  You really can see the patterns of life.  For example, all mammals have more or less the same bones, different shapes for sure, but connected in the same order, and you can generally name the bones, whether it is a mouse or a giraffe or a gorilla or a porpoise.  This isn't news of course to anyone who has studied biology, but it's one thing to know a fact and see illustrations in a book, and another thing altogether to be looking at hundreds of real skeletons, of wildly different shapes, and yet all still a variation on a theme.

So, I have more photos for this post than usual.

Elephant

Whales