Paleontological museum

The exposition of the Paleontological Museum illustrates the evolution of life on the Earth — from its origin to the current state.

Paleontological Museum takes its beginning in 1935 when first small paleontological exposition appeared at the Zoological Museum. The collection of fossil materials for this exposition began to be gathered as far back as in 1919, when the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine was established.

The exposition shows successive evolutionary stages of the vegetable and animal organisms, it contains more than 2.000 original specimens — mostly from the territory of Ukraine, while the whole collection of the Museum comprises about 1 million specimens. The Museum demonstrates 106 showcases, 5 dioramas and 2 installations built of the mammoth bones.

Mammalian bones of the Hipparion fauna are among the unique and most valuable specimens of the museum. The well-preserved skeletons of the Neogene and Quaternary mammals, in particular, the elephant Dinotherium, giraffe Khersonotherium, whale Cetotherium, aurochs (primitive bull), mammoth, etc. are among the most interesting items on display. The adornment of the exposition are the imprints of invertebrates, as well as plants, shells, petrified tree-trunks and bits of amber with insects inside them. Among the attractive exhibits one should mention the structures were frameworks of the primitive men dwellings built of the mammoth bones, which were found in the Cherkassy and Chernigiv regions(in the villages of Mezhyruch and Mizyn).