Long Night of the Museums: Full house with 4,500 night owls
© LIB, Gerisch
What a night that was! Scorpions crawled over researchers’ hands, minerals glowed in the dark and our dinosaur researcher told us how dinosaurs passed their time at night. Almost 4,500 night owls stopped by the Hamburg Museum of Nature on April 22 for the Long Night of Museums – a record! Zoology alone attracted 2,899 visitors, almost twice as many as at the last Long Night in 2019. 900 interested visitors went to Geology-Paleontology in search of traces of past times, and 700 guests came to Mineralogy.
Under this year’s motto “We stay awake!” many drifted from 6:00 p.m. until the next early morning and went on a journey to nocturnal animals, tested their knowledge of species or discovered exciting things from the animal kingdom in our guided tours, lectures and hands-on activities. Others came specifically for the guided tours of the scientific collections, which were quickly booked up. When does one have the opportunity to follow scientists into the otherwise closed realm of spiders, worms, snails and other animals? Or to exchange ideas with specialists on minerals in everyday objects?
Our colleagues from Bonn had invited to an interactive animal journey with FÖRTAX. The Loki Schmidt Foundation offered an expedition into the plant kingdom. Beginners and professionals were welcome. And even those who had not found all the butterflies in the Museum of Nature at the end of the night went home rich: rich in impressions, new insights and the experience of a special night at the museum.
