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The Monterey Bay Aquarium also has giant isopods and a shallow pool where they let you pet the giant isopods. That's not the one I pet but it is one of its friends.
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Feb 25, 2023 01:01
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Knormal posted:The Monterey Bay Aquarium also has giant isopods and a shallow pool where they let you pet the giant isopods. I went to the Cincinnati Museum Center (aka Union Terminal, aka The Hall of Justice) for their Bug Fest one year. The rotunda had a bunch of bug and arthropod related booths. One was being operated by the Newport Aquarium as as we got close to it, this dude who was just chillin' next o the booth and sitting with his feet on a cooler kinda woke up and was said in the most conspiratorial tone "Psst! Hey! Y'all wanna pet a horseshoe crab?" He took his feet off the cooler, opened it, and pulled out a horseshoe crab. I definitely pet that crab, then later had some mealworm fried rice.
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Feb 25, 2023 01:11
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Not to brag but my mom's old boss's sister in law worked at the Smithsonian in the Department of Fishes, so my family and I got to go down in the basement where she worked with all the specimens and preserved fish in jars, which was already just about the coolest possible museum experience, but then she asked if we wanted to see the coelocanth, which was in a big chest freezer full of alcohol or formaldehyde or whatever that stuff is. I got to put on a big rubber glove and put my hand in its mouth and pull it up for a look like this.
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Feb 25, 2023 01:55
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Unfortunately it's now closed, but Minter Gardens in British Columbia was one of the coolest places on Planet Earth.
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Feb 25, 2023 02:16
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Also, Victoria (Which is the capital of BC, believe it or not) contains the Butterfly Gardens. Not pictured: Butterflies.
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Feb 25, 2023 02:20
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Oh, and Miniature World, sorry for the triple post.
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Feb 25, 2023 02:24
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Pittsburgh National Aviary rules. You get to get real close to all kinds of birds.   
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Feb 25, 2023 03:08
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I've never been there, but I'm a big fan of the Nagasaki biopark YouTube channel https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCr9VfOCSX5H1jFa8ku4mH2w
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Feb 25, 2023 03:59
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The Los Angeles Natural History Museum has some cool stuff, but I don't want to talk about the permanent exhibits, I wanna talk about Spiders The Spider Pavilion is an annual event running from some time in late summer to late fall. If you've ever been to a zoo aviary or butterfly pavilion it's like that, but you get locked in a mesh tent with horrifically poisonous arachnids from around the world. The big girls (Tarantulas, bird eating spiders, giant huntsmans) get their own terrariums in the lobby...     ...Which is a good time waster because visitors are going to be there for a while. Because here's the thing, before entry each group of visitors has to sit down for a talk lasting at least five minutes where the keeper sits you down to explain "Do not poke the spiders, do not touch the flowers either, they might have spiders hiding on them, please stay on the clearly marked path so as to not make the spiders think you are encroaching on their territory" This shields the museum from liability in case someone decides they know better. Then finally you get in, and you will never find all of them. They are in front of you, they are under you, they are above you, and most importantly they are behind you.           I go every year, and we aren't really friends until I've tried to drag you to it.
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Feb 25, 2023 06:06
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Hey, we back! Protip: Smithsonian American History Museum's a place to get lowkey trashed Selling this in the cafeteria, wife got a sangria that was basically a slurpee cup full of wine 
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Feb 25, 2023 06:15
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Zurtilik posted:Pittsburgh National Aviary rules. You get to get real close to all kinds of birds. hell yeah, the aviary rules.
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Feb 25, 2023 11:08
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The Aviary always disappointed me a little, though I can't put my finger on why. Birds are awesome. Though, the last time I was there they had some baby flamingos, which always look really weird and funny to me. I love that. Also that spider exhibit looks really awesome. I definitely get a little squeamish around spiders, but I think they're so cool and would love an exhibit for them. It feels like every place I go that has spiders on exhibit just has like, a box or two with a tarantula hiding inside a log. Maybe my all-time favorite museum, though is the Mattress Factory in Pittsburgh, which is a really cool contemporary art museum. One of the more notable things is that it has a couple permanent-installation Yayoi Kusama infinity rooms. But, my favorite part is the James Turrell floor. It's not a big museum, and it's mostly arranged vertically in a small building, so they can dedicate an entire floor to three Turrell works. The whole floor is almost entirely unlit. The moment you step in from the stairwell or elevator, you literally will not be able to even see where the walls are or the corridors are. You have to wait a minute in the entryway just for your eyes to adjust enough to be able to navigate to the exhibits, and even then it's dark enough to be difficult, in my opinion. James Turrell works with the "three-dimensional quality" of light, which is why it's so dark. My favorite, Catso, Red, looks like this:  You turn the corner and enter the room opposite the cube, and will see this big glowing red cube just on the opposite side of the room. This picture looks a little brighter than it feels in person. You can't quite see the edges of the room so clearly. You mostly just see this bright red cube glowing in space. But, as you walk up to it, you'll slowly start to see enough detail that it is not a cube at all, but is actually just a colored projection on the edge of the wall. Another good one is Danaë:  This one is, in a sense, the reverse of Catso, Red. When you first enter, it looks like a simple flat painting of a blue rectangle. When you get a little closer, it looks strange, a little brighter than it should be, and almost like it shimmers a bit? It's hard to describe the experience, but then it becomes clear that it's actually projected light you're looking at. But then you get even *closer*, and it turns out that it isn't a projection at all, it's a hole in the wall. You're actually looking into another room behind the wall that's flooded with UV light. I really love both of these works. Even after having viewed them multiple times and knowing what's going on, the experience feels almost otherworldly, like you're viewing some CGI effect in a sci-fi movie or something that couldn't actually exist.
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Feb 25, 2023 14:39
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i had no idear there were so many past and present yinzers around. the mattress factory is indeed awesome, usually has way better exhibitions than the warhol, if we're being honest.
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Feb 25, 2023 14:45
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DarklyDreaming posted:The Los Angeles Natural History Museum has some cool stuff, but I don't want to talk about the permanent exhibits, I wanna talk about Spiders this is badass
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Feb 25, 2023 15:16
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DarklyDreaming posted:The Los Angeles Natural History Museum has some cool stuff, but I don't want to talk about the permanent exhibits, I wanna talk about Spiders Holy poo poo that's cool
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Feb 25, 2023 16:12
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Every time I see a big spider, I will stop and stare at it for a while. That looks sick as hell.
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Feb 25, 2023 18:18
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I was mad that the bug exhibits were closed the last time I went to a zoo. This is discrimination against weird kids.
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Feb 25, 2023 23:53
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last time I was in a butterfly house a bald man was terrorised by one that wouldn't get off his head. if the forum gets to decide the trajectory of pitbulls career ever again please send him to one
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Feb 25, 2023 23:56
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Dr. Cool Aids posted:last time I was in a butterfly house a bald man was terrorised by one that wouldn't get off his head. if the forum gets to decide the trajectory of pitbulls career ever again please send him to one Like this? https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ng2v1DYHghQ
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Feb 26, 2023 05:09
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No pics, but the Omaka aviation heritage museum in blenheim nz is amazing, it's a small collection of planes in dioramas made by weta workshop, funded by Peter Jackson. Absolutely stunning
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Feb 26, 2023 18:12
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I love old historic houses. It's fascinating to see where and how people lived and what the popular styles were. The Captain Bangs Hallet House https://www.hsoy.org/captain-bangs-hallet-house-museum An old wealthy sea merchant's house on Cape Cod. Did the captain really bang hallet? You'll have to go there to find out. Oh and it's across the street from the Edward Gorey house & museum. The House of Se7en Gables https://7gables.org/ The old fancy 17th century house for which the novel of the same name was named. Also owned by a wealthy sea merchant. The Stone-Tolan House https://landmarksociety.org/programs/historic-sites/stone-tolan/ 18th century farmhouse and tavern. I used to go on field trips here in elementary school. Now schools don't do field trips anymore. WTF, America? One that should be a museum but isn't: The Round House https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Round_House_(Somerville,_Massachusetts) Mid-19th century whatever - it's a round house! How awesome is that? It was in terrible disrepair last time i saw it, but it looks pretty well restored now. No tours sadly. You'll just have to stand outside and gawk until Old Man Round comes out and shoos you away with a broom. Genesee Country Village & Museum https://www.gcv.org/historic-village/ Huge 19th century village. Lots of old buildings and gardens. There's an octagonal house, which is cool but not as cool as a round house.
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Feb 27, 2023 01:24
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I love visiting museums, zoos, and aquariums when I travel; it's the main reason I do travel. I haven't done anything in few years for obvious reasons, but I'm hoping to start up again soon. Close to home, we've got the Burke Museum, which is largely local history with a lot of native stuff, most of which is specifically on loan from local tribes. This neat sculpture represents a legend where, IIRC, a bear married a man, and he did something bad, and she eviscerated him; this is his torn-apart body. I thought I took a picture of the legend, but I guess I didn't.  Woodland Park Zoo is also local, and it's not bad. Penguins and otters are always fun, and they've got a gorilla display.    Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium is another local. The walruses have a regular path they swim (which is a bit upsetting; it makes me think they're starved for stimulation). Don't have a ton of pictures since I visit every couple years.  The Museum of Flight is a major local one, with an A-12, Concorde, an old Air Force One, and a ton of other planes, plus Boeing's original Red Barn where they started. Lots of space artifacts, including a Saturn V F1 engine Bezos fished out of the Atlantic. The B-24 Nine-o-Nine was a visiting exhibit from the Collings Foundation; the plane unfortunately crashed in 2019 and killed 7 of the 13 aboard. Pilot error and poor maintenance were the reported causes.    In LA, the Aquarium of the Pacific is an amazing aquarium; easily my favorite. I don't have a lot of great pictures, but this one of a starfield of baby jelly fish is neat.  The USS Iowa museum is interesting if you haven't had much close-up experience with warships. Everything is just so big and robust. A lot of the ship is unfortunately still inaccessible; they're gradually getting more of the ship ready for visitors, but it takes time and money.  The California Science Center is pretty kid-focused, but they've got some good space exhibits, including one of the Space Shuttles. The Endeavour was the main prompt for my trip to LA. I got to the museum right as it opened and entered the Endeavour exhibit as soon as it opened; there were like 3 other visitors there plus the docents, so it was quiet save for some soft classical music. It was an amazing experience...then after about 20 minutes several busloads of high schoolers showed up. They're planning a new display for Endeavour, upright and mated to the external tank and boosters.   The Natural History Museum in LA was another destination, but I was mostly...whelmed. Part of the museum is an old-style thing where there's a big dark open area with dioramas with taxidermied animals; the rest is more modern. There's an area where paleontologists are cleaning fossils.  The UCLA Meteorite Gallery is basically just an office space on the campus that has a whole bunch of meteorites in it. It's a free visit.  The LA Zoo was nice, but tiring; lot of uphill walking. Since animals have to cooperate for good pictures, I only had a few.   The La Brea Tarpits was neat. It's still an active excavation site, and they had big crates full of asphalt that got excavated when a nearby parking garage got built, so they've got a hell of a backlog. They have some excellent articulated skeletons, and a wall full of hundreds of dire wolf skulls. They'd try to eat animals stuck in or that had died in the asphalt, and would subsequently get caught in it themselves; the predator/prey ratio in the pits is like 100:1.     Jet Propulsion Labs offers scheduled tours. They have a bunch of life-size and scale replicas of the probes they've built and flown, old hardware, and a visit to one of their spacecraft assembly facilities. I believe they were assembling the Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) spacecraft at the time.   I went to England a few years ago, and visited quite a few places there. Westminster Abbey doesn't allow photography inside, but there are a lot of people buried there. Edmund Halley was one of 'em, and his marker wasn't inside so I sneaked a pic.  I'm not generally interested in art galleries, but The National Gallery was nearby, so I visited. It has Van Gogh's Sunflowers and this amazing cat.  The Kew Royal Botanic Gardens are a huge park with a few big greenhouses and some interesting displays; I only made it around about 2/3rds of the Gardens.    The London Science Museum was very frustratingly laid out (it's in an old building), but it had some good aviation and space exhibits, and a very strange one with this display of a human with spliced-in traits from other species. Had to include some space diapers.    I went to Brighton to see a concert, and there happened to be a small museum right by the train station, the Brighton Toy & Model Museum. They had a lot of wood, tin, and lead toys, cursed dolls, and pre-Lego made out of actual stone. I went to Brighton Pier, and the arcade was utterly bizarre to me because like 95% of the games in it, dozens and dozens of them, were just coin pushers.   Went up to Hull for another concert, and went to Salisbury afterwards for Stonehenge. Took a bus tour out to the henge. There was a nice little museum attached giving context to the site. Unfortunately, you can't get very close to the main attraction, as they want to preserve it as best they can.   Later, a visit to The British Museum of Looted Antiquities. This place is enormous and can easily consume a day or two of visits. Of course, they have the Rosetta Stone and the coolest cat statue, some sweet Assyrian spirits, a great dog, some carvings representing a king who thought it was very brave and manly to massacre lions in a ring, written records of military campaigns, and some Roman porn chalices.        I visited the HMS Belfast, a WW2-era cruiser. It's quite a bit smaller than the Iowa, but more of it is open and they added in a bunch of dioramas of life aboard ship.   Only had a couple hours at the Tower of London, but they had a whole lot of neat armor and old weapons.   London Zoo was pretty small compared to others I've visited, and a road bisects it, but they fit in a fair number of exhibits. Plus they've got okapi and something I've never seen, a lemur exhibit where there's nothing separating you from the animals. You could actually get poo poo on by a lemur if you weren't paying attention overhead.  The RAF Museum has a huge variety of military aircraft from all eras, including a Vulcan heavy bomber. I never realized just how big this thing is.  The Greenwich Royal Observatory is 'home' to the Prime Meridian and a small museum of old telescopes and timekeeping equipment, and some meteorites.   The Cutty Sark was a fast trading ship from the late 1800s. You can tour the ship and see how the ship worked and the crew lived. There's also a collection of old figureheads from dozens of ships.   I hope to start up my traveling again this summer.
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Feb 27, 2023 02:53
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Copied from the previous lovely thread: My number one is absolutely The Nelson Atkins.  Claes Oldenburg's Shuttlecocks, which a lot of people hated at first but eventually became a symbol of Kansas City. This is the museum of my heart. I grew up going here for school trips, took summer classes, and went on a date where I later found a Craigslist missed connection about myself. I got a membership for my birthday this year. Even if I didn't have such an emotional attachment to it, it would be in my top five. It has a truly world class collection of Asian art, including an entire 15th century Chinese Buddhist temple. It's massive and an incredibly beautiful, serene space.  A few of my favorite pieces that I like to visit every time I go:   a 1750s stoneware teapot made to look like a polished slab of crinoid fossils (fossils aren't at the museum, I just got the pic for comparison)  A German reliquary from the 1400s that holds one of St. John the Baptist's finger bones.  An ancient Egyptian bronze statue of Bast
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Feb 27, 2023 03:42
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I have to say, without a question the best museum I've ever been to is the museum on site at the American Urological Association down in Maryland. You have to call in and sign up by appointment, but it's free and you get a guided tour with in-depth history of everything and I'd highly recommend it. It's good for a solid couple hours of viewing horrifying instruments that are for jamming up a dick.    https://i.imgur.com/XlGgPPA.jpg https://i.imgur.com/PWcNF2f.jpg        My favorite is the cat's claw 
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Feb 27, 2023 04:21
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Ever since I learned about it from an episode of "Mysteries At the Museum" I've wanted to go to the Lucky Cat Museum
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Feb 27, 2023 04:40
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is there anything cool in Indianapolis? I'll be visiting the area this year
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Feb 27, 2023 04:52
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TheSwizzler posted:is there anything cool in Indianapolis? I'll be visiting the area this year They have a pretty good art museum: Newfields.
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Feb 27, 2023 05:03
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One of my favourite places is the National Railway Museum in York. It's about five minutes' walk from York railway station, it's free of charge, and it's absolutely huge.   ...my favourite part, other than the big machines, is the North Shed - it's a small warehouse absolutely stacked to the rafters with 'all the other stuff' from two centuries of railway history; so there's models and furniture and artworks and cutlery and lamps and signals and handbooks and nameplates and uniforms and etc etc etc, basically a billion-and-one 'little things' with a story of their own to tell.
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Feb 27, 2023 20:27
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so I could say that I finally figured out what this god damned cube is doing. Get well Lowtax.
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Zurtilik posted:Pittsburgh National Aviary rules. You get to get real close to all kinds of birds. Agreed! I love the room full of finches especially but the whole thing is cool.   They lost this eagle briefly but found it again and now its enclosure is covered better   Other highlights are the free flight show they do on the roof in the summer and the hatchery area where you can see the baby hatchlings  There was an especially cute owlet the last time I was there.
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Feb 27, 2023 23:36
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Chicago has the Museum of Surgical Science which is one of my favorite niche museums. https://imss.org/ Seriously incredible art and exhibits. Haven't been in a couple years but they had an iron lung last I went. Chicago botanical gardens also kick rear end and I go whenever I can. One of my favorite places in the city.
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Feb 28, 2023 00:49
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I'm visiting London next week and am researching things to see besides the big museums I've already seen, and stumbled upon the Grant Museum of Zoology and what it apparently its most famous exhibit, the Jar of Moles. Warning: Spoiler tagged for jar of moles 
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Feb 28, 2023 05:07
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I stopped in Omaha during a road trip and saw the zoo there. It's pretty amazing, really big and full of interesting exhibits.
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Feb 28, 2023 06:48
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Thank you OP for this thread. Not really sure what on earth happened to the previous one (i finally out of vacation, i am still, let's just say "catching up on things") and why it's gone but I promised everyone giraffes and giraffes it is. We were at the Wellington Zoo in NZ, which was very rad. I will try to post more stuff of what I've seen in museums/zoos/aquarium/gardens when I have the chance. I still do not know the full extent of what has happened over the weekend but people have been sending me "rhino! dear god!" or huge essays on discords and everywhere else.     also reminds me that one time I was in The Lost World in Malaysia where they housed the giraffe with camels for... reasons? 
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Feb 28, 2023 08:11
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The Saddest Rhino posted:also reminds me that one time I was in The Lost World in Malaysia where they housed the giraffe with camels for... reasons? Supposedly the Ancient Greeks or the Romans or both thought giraffes were the result of leopards loving camels.
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Feb 28, 2023 09:31
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Just found out their scientific name is Giraffa camelopardalis which.... ....... yeah wow experts really thought they were camel-leopard hybrids huh........
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Mar 1, 2023 05:49
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The Saddest Rhino posted:Just found out their scientific name is Giraffa camelopardalis which.... ....... yeah wow experts really thought they were camel-leopard hybrids huh........ Dio, Roman History (XLIII.23.1-2) posted:I will give an account of the so-called camelopard, because it was then introduced into Rome by Caesar for the first time and exhibited to all. This animal is like a camel in all respects except that its legs are not all of the same length, the hind legs being the shorter. Beginning from the rump it grows gradually higher, which gives it the appearance of mounting some elevation; and towering high aloft, it supports the rest of its body on its front legs and lifts its neck in turn to an unusual height. Its skin is spotted like a leopard, and for this reason it bears the joint name of both animals.
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Mar 5, 2023 04:56
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Oh man I had no idea there was a Zoos/Museums thread, that is entirely my jam. I live in St. Louis, so most of mine are free (aside from parking, but there's free street parking if you're willing to parallel park and get there EARLY) so I go to one of mine every few weeks or so. Here's my random mishmash of photos I've taken in the past! Don't mind my husband, the animal whisperer, in a bunch of these; he just has a drat way with animals and it's cute as hell to me. St. Louis Zoo:              St. Louis Art Museum:                St. Louis City Museum (it's more like a weird bar/jungle gym for kids and adults but it's called a Museum so it counts!):     Bonus: Cahokia Mounds:   I think this was a museum at the Mounds, but I legitimately can not remember:   New Orleans Zoo:   
Soysaucebeast has a new favorite as of 18:54 on Mar 6, 2023 |
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Mar 5, 2023 20:55
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Soysaucebeast posted:
I didn't know they were filming a third Blade Runner movie.
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Mar 6, 2023 04:11
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It's called the City Museum and it's rad. Quite possibly one of my favorite places ever.
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Mar 6, 2023 05:19
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HelloIAmYourHeart posted:It's called the City Museum and it's rad. Quite possibly one of my favorite places ever. drat, you're right. I'm a little goon-shaped, so I haven't been there in about a decade. It is pretty cool though! In penance, I've pulled some of the pictures of off the Google Maps location (but there's a hell of a lot more there if you want more).    
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Mar 6, 2023 18:53
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