Mauritianum, Natural history museum in Altenburg, Germany
The Mauritianum is a natural history museum in Altenburg housing comprehensive collections of geology, paleontology, and zoology from central Germany. The building contains specimen displays arranged in separate exhibition spaces, with the zoological section being particularly extensive.
The museum was founded in 1908 when the Saxe-Altenburg parliament decided to fund construction of a new building. The construction followed designs by state architect Alfred Wanckel and emerged from a desire to make the region's research accessible to the public.
The museum is named after Duke Maurice of Saxe-Altenburg, whose passion for collecting shaped its founding. The collections demonstrate how naturalists in the region documented and studied their surroundings across generations.
The collection is spread across multiple floors, meaning visitors should plan time to explore it thoroughly. Most people spend several hours viewing the different departments and specimen displays.
One remarkable exhibit is a mummified rat king made of 32 animals with tangled tails, one of the world's most striking examples of this rare phenomenon. This unusual formation draws regular attention from visitors curious about how such strange occurrences happen in nature.
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