National Museum of Natural History, Natural history museum in Mdina, Malta.
The National Museum of Natural History is housed in Palazzo Vilhena, an 18th-century French Baroque palace located in Mdina. The building contains nearly one million specimens across multiple exhibition halls, including minerals, fossils, insects, and marine organisms.
The building was used for different purposes before opening as a museum in 1973, including as a cholera hospital in 1837. It then served as a tuberculosis treatment facility until 1956 before its transformation into its current form.
The museum celebrates the work of local researchers who dedicated themselves to studying and recording Malta's wildlife. Visitors can see how naturalists contributed to our understanding of the island's plants and animals through their observations.
The museum is open daily from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM and is easily accessible from Mdina's main areas. The exhibition halls are clearly organized, allowing visitors to navigate freely through the different collections at their own pace.
The collection includes a 4,000-year-old mummified Nile crocodile and the tooth of a Giant White Shark among its paleontological holdings. These extraordinary pieces reveal the range of animal life that has captivated people across different eras and regions.
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