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89-574: Cycnorhamphus (meaning " swan beak") is a genus of gallodactylid ctenochasmatoid pterosaur from the Late Jurassic period of France and Germany , about 152 million years ago. It is synonymous with the genus Gallodactylus . In 1855, a fossil in a plate of shale from the Kimmeridgian , found near Nusplingen in Württemberg , holotype GPIT "Orig. Quenstedt 1855, Taf. 1" or GPIT 80 ,

178-463: A stork and some large bird of unknown affinity (due to the bad state of preservation of the referred material). Many of the cultural aspects refer to the mute swan of Europe. Perhaps the best-known story about a swan is the fairy tale " The Ugly Duckling ". Swans are often a symbol of love or fidelity because of their long-lasting, apparently monogamous relationships. See Wagner 's famous swan-related operas Lohengrin and Parsifal . Swan meat

267-565: A subspecies . This is today considered a junior synonym. The specimen was acquired by the Bayerische Staatssammlung für Paläontologie und Geologie but was lost in April 1944 during the Munich bombardment . In 1870, Harry Govier Seeley assigned P. suevicus to a new genus: Cycnorhamphus . The name is derived from Greek κύκνος, kyknos , "swan" and ράμφος, ramphos , "beak", in reference to

356-420: A clutch size of 4 to 7, and an incubation period of 34–45 days. Swans are highly protective of their nests. They will viciously attack anything that they perceive as a threat to their chicks, including humans. One man was suspected to have drowned in such an attack. Swans' intraspecific aggressive behaviour is shown more frequent than interspecific behaviour for food and shelter. The aggression with other species

445-656: A division of the museum, which was born there. The garden was founded by Louis XIII 1635 as the Royal Garden of medicinal plants, under the direction of the royal physician. In the early 18th century, the chateau of the gardens was enlarged to house the collections of the royal pharmacist. In 1729, this collection was broadened into the Cabinet of Natural History, destined to receive the Royal collections dedicated to zoology and mineralogy. New plants and animal species were collected from around

534-579: A heavy focus on the mesmerising characteristics of the swan. Yeats also recounts the myth of Leda and the Swan in the poem of the same name . In Norse mythology , two swans drink from the sacred Well of Urd in the realm of Asgard , home of the gods . According to the Prose Edda , the water of this well is so pure and holy that all things that touch it turn white, including this original pair of swans and all others descended from them. The poem Volundarkvida , or

623-406: A large quantity of specimens and illustrations to enrich the collections of the museum. The museum continued to flourish during the 19th century, particularly under the direction of chemist Michel Eugène Chevreul , His research with animal fats revolutionized the manufacture of soap and of candles and led to his isolation of the heptadecanoic (margaric) , stearic, and oleic fatty acids . In

712-439: A length of over 1.5 m (59 in) and weigh over 15 kg (33 lb). Their wingspans can be over 3.1 m (10 ft). Compared to the closely related geese, they are much larger and have proportionally larger feet and necks. Adults also have a patch of unfeathered skin between the eyes and bill. The sexes are alike in plumage , but males are generally bigger and heavier than females. The biggest species of swan ever

801-688: A master's degree. The museum comprises fourteen sites throughout France with four in Paris, including the Jardin des Plantes in the 5th arrondissement . ( métro Place Monge ). The herbarium of the museum, referred to by code P , includes a large number of important collections amongst its 8 000 000 plant specimens. The historical collections incorporated into the herbarium, each with its P prefix, include those of Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck (P-LA) René Louiche Desfontaines (P-Desf.), Joseph Pitton de Tournefort and Charles Plumier (P-TRF). The designation at CITES

890-842: A new phase of growth. In 1934, the museum opened the Paris Zoological Park , a new zoo to in the Bois de Vincennes , as the home for the larger animals of the Menagerie of the Jardin des Plantes . In 1937, it opens the Musée de l'Homme , a museum of anthropology located in Palais de Chaillot , across the Seine from the Eiffel Tower, in a building created for the 1937 Paris International Exposition . In recent decades, it has directed its research and education efforts at

979-564: A sarcastic reference to a good woman being a "rare bird, as rare on earth as a black swan" (black swans being completely unknown in the Northern Hemisphere until Dutch explorers reached Australia in the 1600s), from which comes the Latin phrase rara avis (rare bird). The Irish legend of the Children of Lir is about a stepmother who transformed her children into swans for 900 years. In

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1068-561: A swan who was devoted to him. In Latin American literature , the Nicaraguan poet Rubén Darío (1867–1916) consecrated the swan as a symbol of artistic inspiration by drawing attention to the constancy of swan imagery in Western culture , beginning with the rape of Leda and ending with Wagner 's Lohengrin . Darío's most famous poem in this regard is Blasón – "Coat of Arms" (1896), and his use of

1157-440: A time when only 20,000 plants had been described, The ground floor interior of the gallery has vestibules built in a combination of Art Deco and Neo-Egyptian styles. It is used for temporary exhibits. The exhibits include a slice of a giant Sequoia tree, 2200 years old, which fell naturally in 1917. The Gallery of Paleontology and Comparative Anatomy was built between 1894 and 1897 by architect Ferdinand Dutert , who had built

1246-404: A word of the same meaning. An adult male is a cob , from Middle English cobbe (leader of a group); an adult female is a pen . A group of swans is called a bevy or a wedge. Swans are the largest extant members of the waterfowl family Anatidae and are among the largest flying birds. The largest living species, including the mute swan , trumpeter swan , and whooper swan , can reach

1335-425: Is FR 75A. It publishes the botanical periodical Adansonia and journals on the flora of New Caledonia, Madagascar and Comoro Islands, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, Cameroon, and Gabon. The Musée de l'Homme is also in Paris, in the 16th arrondissement ( métro Trocadéro ). It houses displays in ethnography and physical anthropology , including artifacts , fossils , and other objects. Also part of

1424-489: Is completely black except for the white flight feathers on its wings; the chicks of black swans are light grey. The South American black-necked swan has a white body with a black neck. The legs of most swans are typically a dark blackish-grey colour, except for the South American black-necked swan, which has pink legs. Bill colour varies: the four subarctic species have black bills with varying amounts of yellow, and all

1513-484: Is no longer considered one of the true swans . Swans usually mate for life , although separation sometimes occurs, particularly following nesting failure, and if a mate dies, the remaining swan will take up with another. The number of eggs in each clutch ranges from three to eight. The genus Cygnus was introduced in 1764 by the French naturalist François Alexandre Pierre de Garsault . The English word swan , akin to

1602-559: Is on the Allée the Buffon facing the centre of the garden, between the Gallery of Mineralogy and the Gallery of Paleontology. At the corner is one of the two oldest trees in Paris, a Robinia pseudoacacia or black locust, planted in 1635 by Vespasien Robin, the royal gardener and botanist, from an earlier tree brought from America by his brother, also a botanist, in 1601. It is tied in age with another from

1691-506: Is popularly believed the British monarch is the only person allowed to eat swans in the United Kingdom. Swans feature strongly in mythology . In Greek mythology , the story of Leda and the Swan recounts that Helen of Troy was conceived in a union of Zeus disguised as a swan and Leda , Queen of Sparta . Other references in classical literature include the belief that, upon death,

1780-700: Is shown more in tundra swans . Evidence suggests that the genus Cygnus evolved in Europe or western Eurasia during the Miocene , spreading all over the Northern Hemisphere until the Pliocene . When the southern species branched off is not known. The mute swan is closest to the Southern Hemisphere Cygnus ; its habits of carrying the neck curved (not straight) and the wings fluffed (not flush) as well as its bill colour and knob indicate that its closest living relative

1869-500: Is some evidence that the black-necked swan is migratory over part of its range, but detailed studies have not established whether these movements are long or short-range migration. Swans feed in water and on land. They are almost entirely herbivorous, although they may eat small amounts of aquatic animals. In the water, food is obtained by up-ending or dabbling, and their diet is composed of the roots, tubers, stems and leaves of aquatic and submerged plants. A familiar behaviour of swans

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1958-473: Is that they mate for life, and typically bond even before they reach sexual maturity. Trumpeter swans, for example, can live as long as 24 years and only start breeding at the age of 4–7, forming monogamous pair bonds as early as 20 months. "Divorce", though rare, does occur; one study of mute swans shows a 3% rate for pairs that breed successfully and 9% for pairs that do not. The pair bonds are maintained year-round, even in gregarious and migratory species like

2047-475: Is the Grand Gallery of Evolution, located at the end of the central alley facing the formal garden. It replaced an earlier Neoclassical gallery built next to the same by Buffon, opened in 1785, and demolished in 1935. It was proposed in 1872 and begun in 1877 by the architect Louis-Jules André , a teacher at the influential École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. It is a prominent example of Beaux Arts Architecture . It

2136-743: Is the Herbier National, a collection representing 7.5 million plants collected since the founding of the museum. They are divided for study into Spermatophytes , plants which reproduce with seeds, and cryptogams , plants which reproduce with spores , such as algae , lichens and mushrooms . Many of the plants were collected by Jean Baptiste Christophore Fusée Aublet , the royal pharmacist and botanist in French Guiana . In 1775 he published his "Histoire des plantes de la Guiane Française" describing 576 genera and 1,241 species of neotropical plants, including more than 400 species that were new to science, at

2225-667: Is the black swan. Given the biogeography and appearance of the subgenus Olor, it seems likely that these are of a more recent origin, as evidenced shows by their modern ranges (which were mostly uninhabitable during the last ice age ) and great similarity between the taxa. C. melancoryphus (Black-necked swan) C. atratus (Latham, 1790) (Black swan) C. olor (Gmelin, 1789) (Mute swan) C. buccinator Richardson, 1832 (Trumpeter swan) C. cygnus (Linnaeus, 1758) (Whooper swan) C. columbianus (Ord, 1815) (Tundra swan) Genus Cygnus The coscoroba swan ( Coscoroba coscoroba ) from South America,

2314-419: Is the rose garden, renewed in 1990 with 170 types of European roses, as well as a Styphnolobium japonicum or Japanese pagoda tree, planted there by Bernard de Jussieu in 1747. The gallery contains over 600,000 stones and fossils. It is particularly known for its collection of giant crystals, including colourful examples of azurite , Tourmaline (Rubelite), Malachite and Ammonite . Other displays include

2403-519: Is to be in the world without getting attached to it, just as a swan's feather does not get wet although it is in water. The Sanskrit word for swan is hamsa and the "Raja Hamsam" or the Royal Swan is the vehicle of Devi Saraswati , which symbolises the Sattva Guna or purity par excellence. The swan, if offered a mixture of milk and water, is said to be able to drink the milk alone. Therefore, Saraswati,

2492-806: The Lay of Volund , part of the Poetic Edda , also features swan maidens. In the Finnish epic Kalevala , a swan lives in the Tuoni River located in Tuonela , the underworld realm of the dead. According to the story, whoever killed a swan would perish as well. Jean Sibelius composed the Lemminkäinen Suite based on the Kalevala , with the second piece entitled Swan of Tuonela (Tuonelan joutsen) . Today, five flying swans are

2581-513: The Louvre Museum . But its origins went back much further, to the Royal Garden of Medicinal Plants, which was created by King Louis XIII in 1635, and was directed and run by the royal physicians . A royal proclamation of the boy-king Louis XV on 31 March 1718, removed the purely medical function. Besides growing and studying plants useful for health, the royal garden offered public lectures on botany, chemistry, and comparative anatomy. In 1729,

2670-607: The Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre Curie and Marie Curie for the discovery of spontaneous radioactivity. Four generations of Becquerels held this chairmanship, from 1838 to 1948. As its collections grew, the museum was enlarged, with the construction of a new gallery of zoology. it was begun in 1877 and completed in 1889, for the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution. A new gallery of paleontology and comparative anatomy

2759-481: The tundra swan , which congregate in large flocks in the wintering grounds. Swans' nests are on the ground near water and about a metre (3') across. Unlike many other ducks and geese, the male helps with the nest construction, and will also take turns incubating the eggs. Alongside the whistling ducks , swans are the only anatids that will do this. The average egg size (for the mute swan) is 113 × 74 mm ( 4 + 1 ⁄ 2 x 3 in), weighing 340 g (12 oz), in

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2848-400: The 18th century. On the garden side is another hall, in its original size, devoted to animals which have disappeared or are in danger of extinction. The Gallery of Mineralogy, looking across the formal garden and close to the Gallery of Evolution, was constructed between 1833 and 1837 by Charles Rohault de Fleury in a neoclassical style, with two porticos of Doric columns. Directly in front

2937-543: The 2014 reform, it has been headed by a chairman, assisted by deputy managing directors. The Museum has a staff of approximately 2,350 members, including six hundred researchers. It is a member of the national network of naturalist collections (RECOLNAT). The museum was formally established on June 10, 1793, by the French Convention , the government during the French Revolution , at the same time that it established

3026-520: The Beef-Pie." Swans being raised for food were sometimes kept in swan pits . The Illustrious Brotherhood of Our Blessed Lady , a religious confraternity which existed in 's-Hertogenbosch in the late Middle Ages, had "sworn members", also called "swan-brethren" because they used to donate a swan for the yearly banquet. Based on a mistaken belief that the British monarch owns all the swans in Britain, it

3115-730: The Caucasus, North American and the Himalaya. The gardens of the School of Botany contain 3,800 species of plants, displayed by genre and family. The Menagerie is the second-oldest public zoo in the world still in operation, following the Tiergarten Schönbrunn in Vienna, Austria, founded in 1752. It occupies the northeast side of the garden along the Quai St. Bernard, covering five hectares (13.6 acres). It

3204-534: The Comparative Anatomy gallery B) Statue of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre , with Paul and Virginia C) The alpine garden D) The Hôtel de Magny E) The gallery of Paleontology and Comparative Anatomy, with the statue of the First Artist by Paul Richer F) The Gallery of Mineralogy and Geology G) The greenhouse of New Caledonia built between 1834 and 1836 (at the time the "oriental pavilion") according to

3293-609: The German Schwan , Dutch zwaan and Swedish svan , is derived from the Indo-European root *swen ( H ) ( ' to sound, to sing ' ). Young swans are known as cygnets , from Old French cigne or cisne (diminutive suffix et ' little ' ), from the Latin word cygnus , a variant form of cycnus ' swan ' , itself from the Greek κύκνος kýknos ,

3382-668: The National Museum of Natural History. The menagerie is currently home to about six hundred mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and invertebrates, representing about 189 species. These include the Amur leopard from China, one of the rarest cats on earth. The museum has as its mission both research (fundamental and applied) and public diffusion of knowledge. It is organized into seven research and three diffusion departments. The research departments are: The diffusion departments are: The museum also developed higher education, and now delivers

3471-557: The Natural History Museum Paris is a private organization that provides financial support for the museum, its branches and the Jardin des Plantes . Membership includes free entry to all galleries of the museum and the botanical garden. The Friends have assisted the museum with many purchases for its collections over the years, as well as funds for scientific and structural development. A) The cetaceum (podium of cetaceans), in

3560-692: The Pleistocene taxa from North America would be placed in Olor . Several prehistoric species have been described, mostly from the Northern Hemisphere. In the Mediterranean, the leg bones of the giant swan ( C. falconeri ) were found on the islands of Malta and Sicily ; it may have been over 2 metres from tail to bill, which was taller (though not heavier) than the contemporary local dwarf elephants ( Palaeoloxodon falconeri ). The supposed fossil swans "Cygnus" bilinicus and "Cygnus" herrenthalsi were, respectively,

3649-664: The Vedas, swans are said to reside in the summer on Lake Manasarovar and migrate to Indian lakes for the winter. They are believed to possess some powers, such as the ability to eat pearls. Swans are intimately associated with the divine twins in Indo-European religions, and it is thought that in Proto-Indo-European times , swans were a solar symbol associated with the divine twins and the original Indo-European sun goddess . National Museum of Natural History, France Since

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3738-492: The animal possesses a very unusual jaw anatomy, with peg-like teeth at the jaw tips - blunter and stouter in older individuals -, jaw curvatures behind said teeth that form angled arcs away from the biting surface, forming thus an opening, and two poorly understood soft tissue structures occupying this opening from the upper jaw, showing mineralization. The purpose of these adaptations is unknown, but they are more obvious and well developed in adult animals. It has been speculated that

3827-464: The chateau in the garden was enlarged with an upper floor, and transformed into the cabinet of natural history, designed for the royal collections of zoology and mineralogy. A series of greenhouses were constructed on the west side of the garden, to study the plants and animals collected by French explorers for their for medical and commercial uses. From 1739 until 1788, the garden was under the direction of Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon , one of

3916-440: The earliest theory of evolution, and were a base for major scientific expeditions by Nicolas Baudin , Alexander von Humboldt , Jules Dumont d'Urville and others throughout the 18th and 19th century. The gardens today include a large formal garden planted in geometric designs; and two enormous greenhouses, keeping tropical plants at a steady temperature of 22 degrees Celsius. The Alpine gardens present plants coming from Corsica,

4005-482: The effects on the environment of human exploitation. In French public administration, the Muséum is classed as a grand établissement of higher education. Some of the buildings, particularly the Grand Gallery of Evolution, completed in 1889, were in poor condition by the mid-20th century. It was closed entirely in 1965, then underwent major restoration between 1991 and 1994 to its present state. The birthplace of

4094-485: The entirety of Africa. One species, the mute swan, has been introduced to North America, Australia and New Zealand. Several species are migratory , either wholly or partly so. The mute swan is a partial migrant, being resident over areas of Western Europe but wholly migratory in Eastern Europe and Asia. The whooper swan and tundra swan are wholly migratory, and the trumpeter swans are almost entirely migratory. There

4183-475: The entrance are filled with elaborate designs and sculpture of seashells. Inside the entrance is a large marble statue of an Orangutan strangling a hunter, created in 1885 by the noted animal sculptor Emmanuel Fremiet , best known for his statue of Joan of Arc on horseback on the Place des Pyramides in Paris. The Jardin des plantes is the home of the main galleries of the National Museum of Natural History, and

4272-608: The favor by placing a life size cardboard cutout of Adèle and the hatching pterodactyl in a glass cabinet outside the main entrance on the top floor balcony). The Pulitzer Prize –winning novel All the Light We Cannot See , by Anthony Doerr , partially takes place at the natural history museum; the father of the protagonist Marie-Laure works as the chief locksmith of the museum. Directors elected for one year: Directors elected for two years: Directors elected for five years: Presidents elected for five years: The Friends of

4361-482: The first page and several subsequent pages of Adèle et la bête ( Adèle and the Beast ; 1976), the first album in the series of Les Aventures extraordinaires d'Adèle Blanc-Sec . The story opens with a 136-million-year-old pterodactyl egg hatching, and a live pterodactyl escaping through the gallery glass roof, wreaking havoc and killing people in Paris (The Gallery of Palaeontology and Comparative Anatomy returned

4450-415: The fossils, concluding that the differences between the two species could be explained by age, sex or individual variation, and formally synonymized C. canjuersensis and C. suevicus . Cycnorhamphus had historically been assumed to have had long jaws with teeth at the very tip, akin to those of Pterodactylus antiquus . However, recent work on a specimen nicknamed "The Painten Pelican" has revealed that

4539-414: The garden is divided into eleven traverses. Ten are decorated with sculpted medallions honouring prominent French scientists associated with the museum. The central traverse has a larger marble statue of a woman seated holding a book, in a pose similar to that of statue of Buffon facing the building. The statues are the work of Eugene Guillaume , a pupil of the sculptor Pradier. While the building exterior

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4628-424: The genus Cygnus within the family Anatidae . The swans' closest relatives include the geese and ducks . Swans are grouped with the closely related geese in the subfamily Anserinae where they form the tribe Cygnini . Sometimes, they are considered a distinct subfamily, Cygninae . There are six living and many extinct species of swan; in addition, there is a species known as the coscoroba swan which

4717-578: The goddess of knowledge, is seen riding the swan because the swan thus symbolizes Viveka , i.e. prudence and discrimination between the good and the bad or between the eternal and the transient. This is seen as a great quality, as shown by this Sanskrit verse: It is mentioned several times in the Vedic literature, and persons who have attained great spiritual capabilities are sometimes called Paramahamsa ("Supreme Swan") on account of their spiritual grace and ability to travel between various spiritual worlds. In

4806-448: The history of the Natural sciences . Early chaired positions were held by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck , René Desfontaines and Georges Cuvier , and later occupied by Paul Rivet , Léon Vaillant and others. The Gallery of Palaeontology and Comparative Anatomy and other parts of Jardin des Plantes was a source of inspiration for French graphic novelist Jacques Tardi . The gallery appears on

4895-610: The innovative iron-framed Galerie des machines at the 1889 Paris Exposition . A new pavilion in the same style was added to the west side of the gallery; it was completed in 1961. In front of the Gallery is the Iris Garden, created in 1964, which displays 260 varieties of iris flowers, and a sculpture, "Nymph with a pitcher" (1837) by Isidore Hippolyte Brion. The sides of gallery are also decorated with sculpture; twelve relief sculptures of animals in bronze and fourteen medallions of famous biologists. The ironwork grill and stone arches over

4984-576: The jars and vestiges of the original royal apothecary of Louis XIV, and three Florentine marble marquetry tables from the palace of Cardinal Mazarin . The gallery also contains a large collection of meteorites , gathered from around the world. These include a large fragment of Canyon Diablo meteorite , a piece of an asteroid which fell in Arizona about 550,000 years ago, and created the Meteor crater . It weighs 360 kilograms (970 pounds). The Gallery of Botany

5073-885: The jaws functioned similar to those of openbill storks , allowing the animal to hold hard invertebrates like mollusks and either crush or bisect them. As illustrated below, the results of a topology are based on a phylogenetic analysis made by Longrich, Martill, and Andres in 2018. They placed the Cycnorhamphus within the clade Euctenochasmatia , more precisely within the family Gallodactylidae , sister taxon to Normannognathus . Germanodactylus cristatus Germanodactylus rhamphastinus [REDACTED] Pterodactylus antiquus [REDACTED] Cycnorhamphus suevicus Normannognathus wellnhoferi Ctenochasmatidae [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] Swan 6 living, see text . Cygnanser Kretzoi , 1957 Swans are birds of

5162-703: The knob, which is larger in males and is condition dependent, changing seasonally. Swans are generally found in temperate environments, rarely occurring in the tropics. Four (or five) species occur in the Northern Hemisphere , one species is found in Australia, one extinct species was found in New Zealand and the Chatham Islands , and one species is distributed in southern South America. They are absent from tropical Asia, Central America, northern South America and

5251-501: The leading naturalists of the Enlightenment . Though he did not go on scientific expeditions himself, he wrote a monumental and influential work, "Natural History", in thirty-six volumes, published between 1749 and 1788. In his books, he challenged the traditional religious ideas that nature had not changed since the creation; he suggested that the earth was seventy-five thousand years old, divided into seven periods, with man arriving in

5340-562: The legend The Wooing of Etain the king of the Sidhe (subterranean-dwelling, supernatural beings) transforms himself and the most beautiful woman in Ireland, Etain, into swans to escape from the king of Ireland and Ireland's armies. The swan has recently been depicted on an Irish commemorative coin . Swans are also present in Irish literature in the poetry of W. B. Yeats . "The Wild Swans at Coole" has

5429-438: The medical field, he was first to demonstrate that diabetics excrete glucose . and to isolate creatine . His theories of color "provided the scientific basis for Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist painting." Henri Becquerel held the chair for Applied Physics at the Muséum (1892–1908). By wrapping uranium salts in photographic paper, he first demonstrated the radioactive properties of uranium . In 1903, he shared

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5518-583: The mineral dolomite and to a volcano on Reunion island, and the botanist Rene Desfontaines , who spent two years collecting plants for study Tunisia and Algeria, and whose book "Flora Atlantica" (1798–1799, 2 vols), added three hundred genera new to science. When Napoleon Bonaparte launched his military campaign to conquer Egypt in 1798, his army was accompanied by more than 154 scientists, including botanists, chemists, mineralogists, including Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire , Vivant Denon , Joseph Fourier , and Claude Louis Berthollet , who together took back

5607-514: The most recent. He also helped fund much research, through the iron foundry which he owned and directed. His statue is prominently placed in front of the Gallery of Evolution. Following the French Revolution the museum was reorganized, with twelve professorships of equal rank. Some of its early professors included eminent comparative anatomist Georges Cuvier and the pioneers of the theory of evolution, Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck and Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire . The museum's aims were to instruct

5696-638: The museum and a large part of its modern collections are found in five galleries in the Jardin des Plantes . These are the Gallery of Evolution; the Gallery of Mineralogy and Geology; the Gallery of Botany; the Gallery of Paleontology and Comparative Anatomy and the Laboratory of Entomology. The National Museum of Natural History has been called "the Louvre of the Natural Sciences". Its largest and best-known gallery

5785-422: The museum are: The transformation of the Jardin from the medicinal garden of the king to a national public museum of natural history required the creation of twelve chaired positions. Over the ensuing years the number of Chairs and their subject areas evolved, some being subdivided into two positions and others removed. The list of Chairs of the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle includes major figures in

5874-407: The mute swan would sing beautifully—hence the phrase swan song . The mute swan is also one of the sacred birds of Apollo , whose associations stem both from the nature of the bird as a symbol of light, as well as the notion of a "swan song". The god is often depicted riding a chariot pulled by or composed of swans in his ascension from Delos . In the second century, the Roman poet Juvenal made

5963-402: The only species in its genus, is not a true swan. Its phylogenetic position is not fully resolved; it is in some aspects more similar to geese and shelducks . The fossil record of the genus Cygnus is quite impressive, although allocation to the subgenera is often tentative; as indicated above, at least the early forms probably belong to the C. olor – Southern Hemisphere lineage, whereas

6052-427: The others are patterned red and black. Although birds do not have teeth, swans, like other Anatidae, have beaks with serrated edges that look like small jagged "teeth" as part of their beaks used for catching and eating aquatic plants and algae, but also molluscs, small fish, frogs, and worms. In the mute swan and black-necked swan, both sexes have a fleshy lump at the base of their bills on the upper mandible , known as

6141-408: The plans of Charles Rohault de Fleury H) Cuvier 's house on the left and the triangular pediment of the east wing of the Whale Pavilion on the right I) The Becquerel alley, north side, leads to Cuvier's house where Henri Becquerel discovered radioactivity in 1896 J) The Paleontology gallery, on the second floor, with its mezzanine. The second floor exhibits the vertebrate fossils and the mezzanine

6230-401: The public, put together collections and conduct scientific research. The naturalist Louis Jean Marie Daubenton wrote extensively about biology for the pioneer French Encyclopédie , and gave his name to several newly discovered species. The museum sent its trained botanists on scientific expeditions around the world. Major figures in the museum included Déodat de Dolomieu , who gave his name to

6319-405: The same source planted at the same time on the square of Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre. The Gallery was built in 1930–35 with a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation . Directly in front is a statue entitled "Science and Mystery" by J.L.D. Schroeder, made in 1889. It represents the enigma of and old man meditating over an egg and a chicken, pondering which came first. The primary content of the gallery

6408-409: The snout shape. The type species of this genus is Pterodactylus suevicus , the combinatio nova is Cycnorhamphus suevicus . In 1878, Oscar Fraas referred a specimen of Pterodactylus longicollum , the later Exemplar Nr 58 , to Pterodactylus suevicus . Seeley made this the type specimen of yet another species: Cycnorhamphus Fraasii , in 1891. In 1907 however, Felix Plieninger rejected

6497-514: The split between Pterodactylus and Cycnorhamphus and denied the validity of C. fraasii . This would be the standard interpretation, shared by most paleontologists, for over sixty years. During the late 1960s, the Ghirardi family began to exploit the chalkstone quarries of Les Besson, located on the French army base of Canjuers near Aiguines . A Lagerstätte proved to be present from which many high quality fossils could be collected. One of these

6586-762: The swan made it a symbol for the Modernismo poetic movement that dominated Spanish language poetry from the 1880s until the First World War. Such was the dominance of Modernismo in Spanish language poetry that the Mexican poet Enrique González Martínez attempted to announce the end of Modernismo with a sonnet provocatively entitled, Tuércele el cuello al cisne – "Wring the Swan's Neck" (1910). Swans are revered in Hinduism and are compared to saintly persons whose chief characteristic

6675-460: The symbol of the Nordic countries ; the whooper swan ( Cygnus cygnus ) is the national bird of Finland; and the mute swan is the national bird of Denmark. The ballet Swan Lake is among the most canonic of classical ballets. Based on the 1875–76 score by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky , the most promulgated choreographic version was created by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov (1895), the premiere of which

6764-439: The world, examined, illustrated, classified, named and described in publications which were circulated across Europe and to America. An amphitheater was constructed in the garden in 1787 to provide a venue for lectures and classes on the new discoveries. New greenhouses were built beginning in 1788, and the size of the gardens was doubled. The gardens served as the laboratory of scientists including Jean Baptiste Lamarck , author of

6853-428: Was a slab showing a pterosaur. The precise time and location of this discovery are unknown. It was first reported in the scientific literature in 1971, by Léonard Ginsburg and Guy Mennessier. In 1974, French paleontologist Jacques Fabre based on this specimen, MNHN CNJ-71, named a new species Gallodactylus canjuersensis . The generic name combines a reference to Gallia with Greek daktylos , "finger". He concluded it

6942-411: Was closed entirely in 1965. It was extensively remodelled between 1991 and 1994 and reopened in its present form. The great central hall, kept in its same form but enlarged during the modernisation, is devoted to the presentation of marine animals on the lower sides, and, on a platform in the center, a parade of full-size African mammals, including a rhinoceros originally presented to King Louis XV in

7031-431: Was created between 1798 and 1836 as a home for the animals of the royal menagerie at Versailles, which were largely abandoned after the French Revolution . Its architecture features picturesque "fabriques", or pavilions, mostly created in the 19th century, to shelter the animals. In the 20th century the larger animals were moved to the Paris Zoological Park , a more extensive site in the Bois de Vincennes . also governed by

7120-622: Was danced by the Imperial Ballet at the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg. The ballet's lead dual roles of Odette (white swan)/Odile (black swan) represent good and evil and are among the most challenging roles created in Romantic classical ballet. The ballet is in the repertories of ballet companies around the world. A swan is one of the attributes of St. Hugh of Lincoln , based on the story of

7209-449: Was named Pterodactylus suevicus by Friedrich August Quenstedt . The specific name refers to the tribal area of Suevia . Quenstedt had earlier mentioned the find in a letter to Professor Heinrich Georg Bronn , which was published in 1854. In it he used the name Pterodactylus württembergicus . In 1855 and 1858, Christian Erich Hermann von Meyer adopted this older species name but it would be forgotten afterwards. The publication in 1854

7298-474: Was neo-classical, the iron framework of the interior was extremely modern for the 19th century, like that of the Gare d'Orsay railroad station of the same period. It contained an immense rectangular hall, 55 meters long, 25 wide and 15 meters high, supported by forty slender cast-iron columns, and was originally covered with a glass roof one thousand square meters in size.The building suffered from technical problems, and

7387-434: Was not meant to be a nomenclatural act. According to Peter Wellnhofer , Pterodactylus württembergicus should be considered a nomen oblitum . In 1858, Johann Andreas Wagner described a second specimen consisting of the wings, a shinbone and a foot. He named it Pterodactylus (Ornithocephalus) eurychirus , "the broad-handed", but later in the same publication used the name Pterodactylus suevicus eurychirus as if it were

7476-523: Was opened in 1889 for the Paris Universal Exposition of 1889 , which also presented the Eiffel Tower . It was never fully completed in its original design; it never received the neoclassical entrance planned for the side of the building away from the garden, facing Rue Geoffroy-Saint-Hilaire. The facade of the building was designed specifically as a backdrop for the garden. The facade facing

7565-455: Was opened in 1898. The cost of construction Drained the museum budget and it began to run short of funds. Its emphasis on teaching brought it into conflict with the University of Paris , which had better political connections. It gradually scaled back its program of teaching and focused primarily on research and the museum collections. After receiving greater financial autonomy in 1907, it began

7654-557: Was regarded as a luxury food in England during the reign of Elizabeth I . A recipe for baked swan survives from that time: "To bake a Swan Scald it and take out the bones, and parboil it, then season it very well with Pepper, Salt and Ginger, then lard it, and put it in a deep Coffin of Rye Paste with store of Butter, close it and bake it very well, and when it is baked, fill up the Vent-hole with melted Butter, and so keep it; serve it in as you do

7743-514: Was the extinct Cygnus falconeri , a flightless giant swan known from fossils found on the Mediterranean islands of Malta and Sicily . Its disappearance is thought to have resulted from extreme climate fluctuations or the arrival of superior predators and competitors. The Northern Hemisphere species of swan have pure white plumage, but the Southern Hemisphere species are mixed black and white. The Australian black swan ( Cygnus atratus )

7832-603: Was the formal naming date. In fact the 1974 paper contains a sufficient description and the species was validly named that year. In 1983, the Ghirardis sold their entire collection to the National Museum of Natural History, France . However, in 1996, Christopher Bennett pointed out that such mistakes do not invalidate a name and that therefore Cycnorhamphus has priority, making Gallodactylus canjuersensis C. canjuersensis . In 2010 and 2012, Bennett published further re-studies of

7921-433: Was the same genus as P. suevicus , but did not revive Cycnorhamphus , judging that the latter name was unavailable because of mistakes in the diagnosis by Seeley, already pointed uit by Plieninger. P. suevicus thus became Gallodactylus suevicus . In 1976, Fabre again named the species, describing it in greater detail but not mentioning the earlier publication. This confused later researchers who mistakenly assumed that 1976

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