Le Muséum de l’Ardèche

[gigantoraptor]

So for the past few weeks I’ve been camping in the Ardèche region in southern France. There was a nice little museum just a couple of miles from where I was staying. Le Muséum de l’Ardèche is the located in the small village Balazuc (which is also worth a visit). Most of the pieces were collected by Bernard Riou, a French Palaeontologist.

 

Some pictures:

 

Fossil insects from the Plateau du Coiron. Fossils from this location (about an hour away from Balazuc) are amazing.

 

 

My favourite insect at the Museum:

 

Nice Millipede

 

Fossil frogs and toads from the same location

 

Fishes, also from the same location. There also is an antelope skull on the wall, and they even have a complete skeleton of one. Very nice to see.

 

Skeleton of a boar-like animal. How much better does it get?

 

Well, much better:

 

Of course, there are many more fossils from this location, including turtles, snakes, birds, leaves, pine cones…

 

On to the next part...

 

[gigantoraptor]

The next big part of their collection: La Voulte-sur-Rhône. At this location, many fossils from extraordinary quality have been found.

I saw this shrimp on photo before I visited the museum, but it was at least three times larger than I expected. An amazing piece…

 

…followed by many more fantastic fossils.

 

There were shark teeth, sharks, fishes, belemnites, octopuses, lobsters, reptile remains and much more from this amazing Jurassic location.

 

 Now, time for the many fossils from other locations.

 

Grallator prints from a nearby location.

 

Crabs and fishes, bivalves, mammal skull, Urchins… and three Megalodon teeth from Chile, USA and Italy.

 

Bird fossil from the Cretaceous of China (don’t know what happened with the lights that day, normally they were just white instead of pink)

 

Ammonite galore. Most of these were local.

 

Trilobites from Southern France (I didn’t even know they were found there)

.

 

 

 

[gigantoraptor]

For the mammal enthousiasts.

 

A local Plesiosaur skeleton. This was a pretty amazing piece.

 

And some big replica’s across the museum.

 

Sarcosuchus imperator

 

Deinonychus antirrhopus

 

Triceratops sp.

 

I don’t think I ever saw a Triceratops skull (or a replica of one) before. The size of this thing dwarfed me.

 

So I hope you all enjoyed this little tour of the museum (I sure did, visited it three times in two weeks). Keep in mind this is only a small fraction of what they have displayed. There is much more to be seen, so if you are ever close to it, you won’t regret a visit.

 

 

[jpc]

I will have to put this on my list for the next trip to France.....

 

[RuMert]

If I'm not mistaken, that's the main museum for incredible la Voulte-sur-Rhône lagerstatte, definitely a must-see