Founded in 1846, it is the oldest and most important Science Museum in the area, with over 2 million specimens, mostly from the Adriatic and the Karst. The museum is especially famous for owning and displaying some great finds and specimens. The dinosaur Antonio, known to science as Tethyshadros insularis, is the largest and most complete Italian dinosaur, but also one of the most important paleontological discoveries in Europe. The only one of its genus of all the known dinosaurs in the world and the only complete specimen ever found of this species, it is an original and indigenous fossil, found in the coastal cliffs of the Villaggio del Pescatore (20 km NW of Trieste). From prehistory and from this area (in this case, from Slovenian Istria ) comes yet another exhibit that is unique in human history… Lonche (or Loka) Man, the oldest example of the use of beekeeping for dental care. It is a human jawbone from more than 6,400 years ago, which has a dental filling medicated with beeswax. Finally, from the North Adriatic, we have Carlotta, an imposing female Great White Shark, 5.4 m (almost 18 ft) long. Caught by an adventurous captain in 1906, it is the largest and most spectacular shark carnivore in Europe and the second largest in the world, among those that are fully preserved. Apart from the dinosaur Antonio, the Shark Carlotta and Lonche Man, at the Museum you can admire: the Wunderkammer (or Room of Wonders) with original exhibits from every continent, reconstructing the Wunderkammer from the dawn of science museums. Then there is the faithful rearrangement (always with original and period furnishings ) of the Zoological Cabinet that two centuries ago gave rise to this very Museum of Trieste. In the dinosaur halls we can find not only Antonio, but also the Acynodon adriaticus, an extraordinary fossil crocodile and oyster-eater and the ancient Marchesetti’s Carsosaurus (a mysterious primitive marine reptile). On the upper floor there are also the rooms on the Evolution of Man (with all the major stages of the development of our species), the rooms displaying the Giants of the Earth and Sea (elephants, Monk Seals, whales and the mythical Narwhal the unicorn of the sea), the Theatre of Skeletons and the room displaying the Cycle of Life. At the end you'll find yourself immersed in the sea, amidst sharks, corals, giant crabs and the Coelacanth, an ancestral fish from the abyss and a true living fossil.
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