Shanghai Natural History Museum

Shanghai Natural History Museum is located in Jing'an Sculpture Park. Its plant-covered roof spirals upward, and from a distance the entire building resembles a "green snail," making it a highly recognizable science popularization venue in downtown Shanghai. The museum displays tens of thousands of specimens and models from seven continents, with ten permanent exhibition zones including Mystery of Origins, River of Life, and Path of Evolution, belonging to three major systems: "Natural Evolution," "Life and Environment," and "Human Civilization." Among them, the approx. 26 m long Mamenchisaurus sinocanadorum skeleton is especially eye-catching.

The museum has five floors in total: two above ground and three below. The regular route starts from the second floor and proceeds from top to bottom, and a careful full visit takes approx. half a day to a full day, so it is advisable to plan your energy in advance. On the second floor, "mystery of origins" takes humanity's journey of exploring the universe as its main thread, displaying astronomical telescope models from various eras such as those of Galileo and Newton, and a theater in one corner of the hall also screens short films about the universe and meteorites. Down on the first floor, "river of life" has a sunken corridor lined on both sides with animal specimens such as primates, birds, tigers, and polar bears, while a huge Mamenchisaurus skeleton stretches overhead; the adjacent "experience nature" is a live exhibit area where you can observe small animals such as butterflies and lizards through display cases, and in the seawater touch pool you can even touch marine creatures such as starfish by hand, which is a very rare experience.

On the basement level, "path of evolution" uses fossils such as trilobites, ammonites, and psittacosaurus to trace the evolutionary thread from the Cambrian explosion to the emergence of humans, and there is also a moving, roaring Tyrannosaurus rex model on site; open the museum's augmented reality app and point it at the Lufengosaurus skeleton, and a three-dimensional 3D dinosaur will run out on the screen, so dinosaur fans must not miss it. The second basement level brings together multiple exhibit areas such as survival wisdom, earth treasures, colorful life, and ecological panorama: "ecological panorama" recreates the African savanna with a walk-through scene of over a thousand square meters, where specimens of giraffes, zebras, antelopes, and a pride of lions freeze the moments of migration and pursuit, giving it quite a bit of the feel of watching "Animal World"; in "colorful life," people always stop to take photos in front of the "butterfly wing painting" pieced together from thousands of butterfly wings. The exploration center, which is deeply loved by children, offers the experience of digging for fossils by hand.

Before leaving, you might want to stop by the souvenir shop. The cute creative items, such as animal-shaped plush toys and amber with insects inside, are perfect keepsakes for this nature trip.