Land Fossils and Minerals Museum, Tainan, Taiwan

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Land Fossils and Minerals Museum is a little known but amazing private museum in Tainan, Taiwan. Before my trip to Tainan, I had googled a lot of information about fossil sites and museums there, but could not find this museum. Luckily, when I was looking for nearby restaurants one evening, it showed up on Google Maps. I went the next day and saw these, among many other treasures:

 

 

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All Taiwanese fossils in this museum were found by the museum owner. After visiting this museum, you will find the three public museums in Tainan boring. Admission was only 50 NT (1.60 USD), and the museum owner gave me a book that he wrote, loaded with beautiful pictures of his fossils!

 

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[caldigger]

Very, very nice displays and specimens. However, I was having a bit of trouble reading the labels. Lol.  You were lucky to have gotten to see this one.  I too have run into private collections that are far more extensive and better displayed than public institution museums.  Thank you for the tour.

 

I noticed in the third picture there is a drain pipe displayed in the back right side of the picture.  What was that about?

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56 minutes ago, caldigger said:

Very, very nice displays and specimens. However, I was having a bit of trouble reading the labels. Lol.  You were lucky to have gotten to see this one.  I too have run into private collections that are far more extensive and better displayed than public institution museums.  Thank you for the tour.

 

I noticed in the third picture there is a drain pipe displayed in the back right side of the picture.  What was that about?

Taiwan is known for Pleistocene mammals, crabs (couldn't get a good pic!) and echinoids. The first picture is Palaeoloxodon huaihoenis, third is Palaeoloxodon naumanni penghunensis. The white skull is a Chilotherium cornutum. There were also many cetaceans but they were not identified.

 

About the drain pipe...you have very good eyes which must be handy when you go fossil hunting . I remember seeing it there...from afar...thinking what's that...but when I got to that spot...I was too drawn by all the goodies around it that I ignored it . I guess it might be from a sunken ship found near the cetaceans?

 

Found more good pics:

[smt126]

That's quite the private collection and pretty cheap admission too at that. Thank you for sharing it. What is the giant vertebra from?

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1 hour ago, smt126 said:

That's quite the private collection and pretty cheap admission too at that. Thank you for sharing it. What is the giant vertebra from?

It's from an unidentified cetacean.