Grant Museum of Zoology, London

Grant Museum of Zoology, London

For enthusiasts of offbeat museums filled to the brim with curious exhibits – particularly an array of skeletons – the Grant Museum of Zoology offers an experience that can easily fill hours of your time.. This Victorian museum, designed with galleries, pays homage to Robert E. Grant (1793–1874), the university's inaugural Professor of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy. He was a pre-Darwinian transmutationist known for his habit of lecturing in formal evening attire and for his audacious teaching of evolution at UCL, a move that posed a risk to his career.

Among the diverse specimens housed here, be sure not to overlook the jar containing pickled moles, the Megaloceros giganteus that was stumbled upon hanging in an Irish pub, the Dodo bones, which had remained stored away for a century until their rediscovery in 2011, the Rhamphorhynchus fossil initially assumed to be a plaster cast but revealed to be an authentic fossil, the walrus penis bone, and the skeletons of a dugong, a quagga (an extinct zebra), and a thylacine, also known as the "Tasmanian tiger" – a marsupial wolf believed to have been extinct since the 1930s, though reported sightings have emerged as recently as 2017.

In addition to its permanent exhibits, the museum regularly hosts intriguing temporary displays and events that leverage the institution's inherent curiosity factor.

Want to visit this sight? Check out these Self-Guided Walking Tours in London. Alternatively, you can download the mobile app "GPSmyCity: Walks in 1K+ Cities" from Apple App Store or Google Play Store. The app turns your mobile device to a personal tour guide and it works offline, so no data plan is needed when traveling abroad.

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Grant Museum of Zoology on Map

Sight Name: Grant Museum of Zoology
Sight Location: London, England (See walking tours in London)
Sight Type: Museum/Gallery

Walking Tours in London, England

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