When reading “Dinosaurs in the Attic” by Douglass J. Preston it was interesting learning about the wide variety and large number of animals that the American Museum of Natural History houses within its walls. The museum contains thousands of dead/preserved animals and most of the museum’s collection is behind closed walls and cut off from public view. It is from these animals and artifacts that scientists are able to study the animals and make discoveries. Reading stories of back rooms stocked with elephant heads and tanks containing tigers and panthers I was struck by how much of the museum that the average visitor does not see. The museum is not just a place for people to look at specimens and learn from them, it is also a place for scientific research.
In the chapters we read Preston gives the reader a kind of tour of some of the different sections of the museum and some history behind each. I found it interesting how some of the animals ended up in the museum in the first place, such as with the story of Meshie the chimp. The story of Meshie illustrates how animals in the museum have histories of their own and many have interesting stories of how they ended up in the museum. Another point I found relevant was when the author discusses how the museum began displaying birds in their “habitat group”. The habitat groups that our class saw in the museum are important in displaying the birds and gives the viewer a sense of the animal’s habitat and way of life. Reading these chapters gave me more insight into how the museum works and about the history of the museum.
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