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Teylers Museum in Haarlem, Netherlands


LordTrilobite

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To mark the occasion of this new sub forum for museums. I would like you show you some wonderful stuff in Teylers Museum in Haarlem, Netherlands. This is actually the oldest museum in the Netherlands and thus also has some really cool history attached to it and it's specimens.

Teylersmuseum.JPG

http://www.teylersmuseum.nl/en

Besides fossils this museum also holds an art and science collection. The museum is just as beautiful as the specimens in it and a true time capsule. While it is quite a small museum, it's charm is worth the trip alone. Even the cabinets are pretty. It even has a few world firsts, such as Archaeopteryx and Mosasaurus.

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Now on to fossils!

One of the most important specimens on display here is one of the Archaeopteryx specimens. This is actually the first Archaeopteryx as it was found before the feather and the London specimen were found. But for a long time it was labeled as a Pterodactylus. Only later was it found that it was in fact an Archaeopteryx. While very incomplete it is one of the larger animals of the genus (the third largest I think). the specimen consists of slab and counter slab. If you look close you can still see the vague impression of the flight feathers on the wings. It also very nicely shows the keratinous sheaths of the claws.

Archaeopteryx lithographica

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Along with Archaeopteryx Teylers also has a very nice collection of the Jurassic of Solnhofen in Bavaria. They have a number of Rhamphorhynchus skeletons, lizards, fish, crustaceans and squids complete with tentacles and inksacs.

Rhamphorhynchus

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Various fish

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Homocosaurus maximiliani

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Various critters

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Edited by LordTrilobite
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Olof Moleman AKA Lord Trilobite

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Then there's a very nice giant salamander. Originally it was thought it was the fossil of a human that died in the biblical flood. Only later when it was further prepped did they see it was a giant salamander similar to the Japanese giant salamanders we can still see today.

Andrias scheuchzeri

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The English Jurassic collection is also very nice. They have a number of complete Steneosaurs and many Ichthyosaurs. Also a nice Plesiosaur skeleton but I don't have a perticularly good photo of it.

Steneosaurus bollensis

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Eurypterygius communis, Leptopterygius platyodon, Ichthyosaurus quadriscissus and Ichthyosaurus communis

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Edited by LordTrilobite
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Olof Moleman AKA Lord Trilobite

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The Cretaceous Maastricht area collection.

There is a whole range of Mosasaur bits and bobs. From partial spines to flippers to teeth. There are also a few nice jaws and a skull.

Mosasaurus hoffmanni

It's interesting to note that this Mosasaurus skull is actually the first skull ever found(1764), even before the Paris specimen. Although it was identified as a fish at the time.

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From the same location also Allopleuron bits, a large sea turtle and a number of large fish. This material all comes from the Maastricht area, which is where the original first Mosasaur was found (which is now in Paris).

Allopleuron hoffmanni

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Edited by LordTrilobite
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Olof Moleman AKA Lord Trilobite

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And lastly some assorted bits.

Some little bits of dinosaurs including a partial Hadrosaur leg bone from the Maastricht area which is incredibly rare. Only two dinosaurs are known from the Netherlands, a theropod that is possibly related to Megalosaurus and a dubious Hadrosaur called Orthomerus that seems to be very closely related to the Asian Amurosaurus, a Lambeosaurid.

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In the first fossil hall you are greeted by a few Mammoth skulls and a cave bear skeleton.

Mammuthus primigenius and Ursus spelaea

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And lastly two very nice skull models of Durodon and Arsinoitherium.

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Edited by LordTrilobite
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Olof Moleman AKA Lord Trilobite

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Charm is right! Real old-world class, and beautifully kept.

That Giant Salamander's story is one of the great legends of Paleontology.

"There has been an alarming increase in the number of things I know nothing about." - Ashleigh Ellwood Brilliant

“Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.” - Thomas Henry Huxley

>Paleontology is an evolving science.

>May your wonders never cease!

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Thanks for sharing. This museum is one of the best kept secrets in the world. Pity that more people don't know about it. I had the luck to visit it a few years ago and was astounded to see the best collection of fossils ever from the Oehninger Schichten, an historical site which is just around the corner from me. The site is long gone, but there's a small museum nearby which shows a few of the old finds from there, but it's nothing to compare with the collection at Teyler, which includes the original Andrias scheuchzeri shown above.

 

Greetings from the Lake of Constance. Roger

http://www.steinkern.de/

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  • 3 years later...

I visited this museum again last year and I took a whole bunch of photos of some specific specimens for a specific purpose. I wanted to make some photogrammetry scans. I had some trouble at first due to the large flat surfaces. The glass in front of some of them was also a bit of an issue. But now I ironed out the technical kinks and I got some rather nice scans out of it. Here are the first. But there's more to come.

 

Both fossils from Germany. The holotype giant salamander Andrias scheucheri and the beautiful Jurassic crocodile Steneosaurus bollensis.

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Olof Moleman AKA Lord Trilobite

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Fun!

I wonder how cool it would be with something more 3D like an ammonite or one of those spiny Moroccan trilobites...

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  • 2 weeks later...

Oof. It took a whole lot of hours to finish. But I'm quite happy with this scan I made. Yes, it's another flat fossil, but a pretty special one. The holotype for Ostromia crassipes, formerly known as the Haarlem Archaeopteryx specimen.

It's so far the only known Anchiornithid outside of China. And it's probably the most important fossil in the whole museum.

I did my best to use on the highest resolution photos I took so that everyone can see the incredible details preserved on this neat little fossil. Dispite being quite incomplete, the keratin sheaths on many of the claws are preserved and quite visible and there are some nice feather impressions from one of the wings.

 

I highly suggest you view this in full screen to properly see all the detail.

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Olof Moleman AKA Lord Trilobite

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Those 3D images are amazing!  Excellent work.  I'm impressed that you can do that on museum display specimens behind glass and not get any glare or reflections.

 

Don

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Thanks!

 

13 minutes ago, FossilDAWG said:

Those 3D images are amazing!  Excellent work.  I'm impressed that you can do that on museum display specimens behind glass and not get any glare or reflections.

 

Don

The Steneosaurus wasn't behind glass. Though it was in a dark corner and couldn't get too close. But yes the Andrias scheucheri and Ostromia crassipes were behind glass and were pretty hard to photograph from certain angles. I had to move the camera around to avoid the bright reflections of the windows nearby. Luckily the rest of the reflections were dark enough that they didn't pose much of a problem. But the glass is kinda the reason why some of the edges may look a little rough as I couldn't get to certain angles.

Olof Moleman AKA Lord Trilobite

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Amazing museum, with some wonderful fossils! Thanks for the tour :)

Also I really like those 3D images you made.

-Christian

Opalised fossils are the best: a wonderful mix between paleontology and mineralogy!

 

Q. Where do dinosaurs study?

A. At Khaan Academy!...

 

My ResearchGate profile

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  • 2 years later...
On 6/23/2019 at 7:15 AM, LordTrilobite said:

Thanks!

 

The Steneosaurus wasn't behind glass. Though it was in a dark corner and couldn't get too close. But yes the Andrias scheucheri and Ostromia crassipes were behind glass and were pretty hard to photograph from certain angles. I had to move the camera around to avoid the bright reflections of the windows nearby. Luckily the rest of the reflections were dark enough that they didn't pose much of a problem. But the glass is kinda the reason why some of the edges may look a little rough as I couldn't get to certain angles.

Johnson et al. (2020) resurrect Macrospondylus for Steneosaurus bollensis as part of their phylogenetic revision of Teleosauroidea; the true Steneosaurus is restricted to the type species S. rostromajor from the Middle Jurassic (Callovian) of Normandy, northern France.

 

Johnson, M.M.; Young, M.T.; Brusatte, S.L. (2020). The phylogenetics of Teleosauroidea (Crocodylomorpha, Thalattosuchia) and implications for their ecology and evolution. PeerJ 8: e9808. doi:10.7717/peerj.9808.

 

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