Vogel Ausstellung

Permanent exhibition

Birds

From small to large, extinct to extant – Discover one tenth of the world’s avian diversity here!

With 1,106 specimens representing 832 species, almost one tenth of the world’s bird species are on display here. Besides the African Ostrich with a weight of 130 kilograms and the little woodstar at a mere 2 grams, several extinct bird species can also be discovered here.

The dodo, the great auk, and the passenger pigeon are among these rarities, which unfortunately can no longer be encountered alive. All birds are the descendants of small, bipedal predatory dinosaurs. In this exhibition, the birds are sorted by “orders.” An order is a division in biological systematics where species are grouped according to shared characteristics. The scientific avian collection of the Senckenberg Gesellschaft für Naturforschung in Frankfurt comprises a much larger number of bird species than on display here and is the second-largest collection in Germany. These collection specimens “behind the scenes” are used by scientists from all over the world in their research projects.