Museum Halls

Galleries
and "original" pictures, taken by us or sent by our correpondents

Here below are galleries that kids can easily browse and click on the pictures of animals animals to watch them often magnified.

Classification

Classification of nature is a very complex matter, and scientists change something in it every few years. Living beings in the Animal Kingdom are identified according to categories as Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Species, but we find also terms under discussion or called as "unranked".
We use to give the children some basic keys,in order to help them to begin to understand animal world, and here is a simplified but correct table, leading to reach what is collected in our Virtual Museum.

Warning: In some pictures and videos small animals are in the hands of kids. They were normally not hurt and were put back in their sites, but it is not correct.
Only few of of them can be dangerous for humans, but in general, if they casually come on our body, we have to gently depose them elsewhere, or wait for them to fly away.
As a general rule, we have to watch them closely, take pictures but NOT TO TOUCH THE INSECTS!

Estimated and known species

According to Wikipedia, the estimated species of Dipera, for example, are about 1,000,000, though only 125.000 have been described. Known beetles are much more, about 400.000, but the number of species could be between 0.9 and 2.1 millions.

So,if small animals from our group collected here are indeed few, we know now that also scientists have a big job to do! And we all are engaged, each at his own level, in the same work, huge and exciting: to look around and try to learn something more of the wonderful natural world we live in.

Descriptions

We gave here for orders and families some few notes, useful to stimulate children's understanding and curiosity, taken from sources on line as Wikipedia, but also from our own experience. We periodically read the descriptions again and correct them if they are weak. We are waiting for suggestions from visitors to the museum, adults and children, so that ever more precise images emerge from words to get an interesting and exact idea of small animals.

Remember, for every photograph from you, we need the place and date of the shot, and possibly more than a picture, from different points of view. Moreover, if we have the original digital files in right size, sent by email, it's better than to take them from social networks, often cut and reduce, as in many cases it is necessary to take only a part of the picture, to frame the subject well without too much background.

Identification

Scientists are very careful and precise dealing with species of animals, often very difficult to define. From that point of view it is correct, if we are not totally sure, after identifying the genus to write “sp” (for species).
Here though we try to give a name and a "surname" (species and genus) as much as possible, basing on details that a kids can see and hopefully then is lead to search for: the colors and patterns of a butterfly or a bug, the “face” of a wasp.
In an educational context, interest and curiosity are more important than absolute scientific precision, as long as, when someone finds mistakes, they help us correct them. Thus we also learn that science is not a set of revealed truths, but a continuous search towards an ever greater knowledge of reality.