Beaty Biodiversity Museum facts for kids
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| Established | 2010 |
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| Location | 2212 Main Mall, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada |
| Type | Natural History Museum |
| Visitors | 42,367 (2017–18) |
The Beaty Biodiversity Museum is an exciting natural history museum in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It is located right on the campus of the University of British Columbia (UBC). The museum first opened its doors on October 16, 2010. It has a huge 20,000 square feet (1,900 square metres) of space for its collections and exhibits. Since opening, over 35,000 people visit this amazing museum every year!
The museum is home to over two million specimens. These specimens have been collected since the 1910s. They are part of several special collections, like the Cowan Tetrapod Collection and the Fish Collection. The museum mostly focuses on animals and plants found in British Columbia, Yukon, and along the Pacific Coast. The most famous display is a giant 25-metre (82-foot) skeleton of a female blue whale. This huge skeleton hangs above the ramp leading to the main exhibits.
Contents
Finding the Museum
The Beaty Biodiversity Museum is part of the Beaty Biodiversity Centre at the University of British Columbia (UBC). Its address is 2212 Main Mall, Point Grey, Vancouver, British Columbia. Right next to the museum is the UBC Fisheries Centre. This center has cool skeletons of a minke whale, a killer whale, and even dolphins!
What the Museum Looks Like
The museum building is very large, with four floors. It was designed to be friendly to the environment. It has a special "green roof" and a water garden. These help to keep the building clean and manage rainwater. The museum also uses natural light and air to save energy. This helps protect some of the delicate collections too.
The museum has a theater and a huge area for its exhibits. When you enter, you walk into the Mowafaghian Atrium. This is a tall, glass-walled area. Here you'll find the museum's gift shop and a cafe. Most importantly, this is where Canada's largest blue whale skeleton hangs! The whale is suspended over a ramp that takes you down to the main collections. There's also a "family zone" with books for younger visitors. You can even explore a "Discovery Lab" with a teaching collection.
How the Museum Started
The different collections at the Beaty Biodiversity Museum are actually much older than the museum itself. Some parts date back to the early 1900s! Before the museum was built, all these collections were kept in separate places around the university.
The idea for one big museum came up in 2001. University professors wanted a place where scientists could work together on biodiversity. They also wanted a public museum to show off UBC's amazing collections.
The museum is named after Ross and Trisha Beaty. They are UBC graduates who gave $8 million to help create it. Many other groups also helped fund the museum. The first director was Dr. Wayne Maddison. The current director is Dr. Quentin Cronk.
Amazing Collections
The museum holds over two million specimens. Some of these are from as far back as the 1910s. These specimens are divided into six main groups. These include the Cowan Tetrapod Collection, the Marine Invertebrate Collection, and the Fossil Collection. There are also over 500 permanent exhibits. Each item usually has a small card explaining what it is and where it came from.
The Blue Whale Exhibit
The museum's most famous display is its 25-meter-long skeleton of a female blue whale. This huge skeleton hangs in the museum's glass atrium. It is Canada's largest blue whale skeleton. It's also one of only 21 blue whale skeletons on public display anywhere in the world!
Getting the whale ready for display was a huge project. It was even featured in a TV show called Raising Big Blue. The museum often shows this documentary in its theater.
Cowan Tetrapod Collection
The Cowan Tetrapod Collection started in 1951. It is named after its first leader, Dr. Ian McTaggart-Cowan. This collection brings together many older collections of animals.
It has over 40,000 items from more than 2,000 different species. This includes 18,000 mammals, 17,500 birds, and 1,600 reptiles and amphibians. It is the second-largest collection of these animals in British Columbia.
The collection has examples of almost all land animals and marine mammals from British Columbia. Some specimens are very old, from 1849! You can also see rare animals like the red panda. There are even specimens of extinct species, like the passenger pigeon.
Marine Invertebrate Collection
The Marine Invertebrate Collection began in the 1930s. It started with specimens preserved in alcohol. These were collected by Dr. C. McLean Fraser and Dr. Ian McTaggart Cowan. This collection was first used for teaching. It grew over time to include thousands of specimens.
The collection has many different types of sea animals. These include jellyfish, snails, worms, starfish, crabs, and sponges. Many new shells and corals were added in 2006 and 2007.
The Herbarium
The Herbarium is one of the oldest collections at UBC. It was started in 1912 by John Davidson. He was the BC provincial botanist at the time. His collection of plants was first in downtown Vancouver. It moved to the university campus in 1925.
This collection has more than 650,000 specimens. It is the largest plant collection in Canada west of Ottawa. Scientists use these specimens to identify plants and discover new species. They also help track how plant diversity changes over time. The Herbarium includes conifers, ferns, mosses, flowering plants, algae, lichens, and fungi.
Spencer Entomological Collection
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The Spencer Entomological Collection was started by Dr. George Spencer in the 1920s. It even has specimens from as early as the 1830s! When Dr. Spencer retired, the collection had over 300,000 items. It became an official university collection in 1953.
Today, this collection has over 600,000 items. It includes over 500,000 pinned insects. It is the second-largest insect collection in Canada. It focuses on insects found in British Columbia and Yukon. The collection also has 350 books about insects.
Fish Collection
Dr. C. MacLean Fraser, the first head of UBC's Zoology Department, gave her collections to the university in the 1940s. These were shown in a UBC Fish Museum. The collection grew quickly after 1952.
The Fish Collection has over 850,000 specimens. These include whole fish preserved in alcohol, skeletons, and even fish X-rays. It also has over 50,000 DNA and tissue samples. It is the third-largest fish collection in Canada. It is especially strong in freshwater and nearshore marine species.
This collection has been used to help protect fish and study the environment. It has also helped train many top fish biologists in Canada.
Fossil Collection
The Fossil Collection was started in 1924 by Dr. Merton Yarwood Williams. He was a co-founder of UBC's Geology Department. The collection was shown in the Geological Sciences Centre starting in 1971.
The Fossil Collection has over 20,000 items. Some cool things in the collection are stromatolites. These are rock formations made by tiny blue-green algae. They are some of the oldest fossils, dating back 500 million years! You can also see examples from the famous Burgess Shale.
In 2018, the museum added three casts of dinosaur trackways to its exhibits. These are from the Peace Region area of British Columbia.
See also
In Spanish: Museo de Biodiversidad Beaty para niños
