The Museo Civico di Storia Naturale di Milano (Milan Natural History Museum) is a museum in Milan, Italy. It was founded in 1838 when
naturalist Giuseppe de Cristoforis donated his collections to the city. Its first director was Giorgio Jan.
The museum is divided into five different permanent sections: Mineralogy (with a large collection of minerals from all over the world); Paleontology (with several fossils of dinosaurs and other prehistoric organisms); Natural History of Man (dedicated to the origins and evolution of humans with a particular attention to the relationship of the latter with the environment); Invertebrate Zoology (dedicated to mollusks, arthropods and entomology); and Vertebrate Zoology (dedicated to vertebrates, both exotic and European).[1]
The museum exhibits the largest Italian collection of over 100 full size dioramas. These allow visitors to observe many aspects of faraway ecosystems.[2]
The natural history of man section is dedicated to the origins of humans from early primates to Homo sapiens. Human evolution is described from the phylogenetic, morphological and ecological points of view with several archaeological objects and realistic plastic models. One of the most valuable pieces is the cast of an Australopithecus afarensis skeleton.[5]
On the second floor of the building is the vertebrate zoology section. It displays many taxidermied animals from both Europe and abroad, and many animal skeletons including that of a sperm whale that measures approximately twelve metres in length. There are also many full-scale dioramas with mounted specimens displayed in realistic settings.[7]
The collection is notable for about 30 primary types of reptiles,[8] many of which have been described by the museum's first director, Giorgio Jan, who is also one of the most prolific herpetologists of all time with about 100 reptile species described.[9]