About the exhibition
From small to large, extinct or still alive today – discover a tenth of the enormous diversity of bird life here!
With 1,106 birds from 832 species, our museum displays almost a tenth of all bird species that exist on Earth. In addition to the 130-kilogram African ostrich and the bumblebee hummingbird, which weighs only 2 grams, you can also discover extinct bird species.
The dodo, the great auk, and the passenger pigeon are among these rarities that, sadly, can no longer be seen alive. In this exhibition, the birds are sorted according to “orders.” An order is a classification unit in biological systematics in which species are grouped according to common characteristics. The scientific bird collection of the Senckenberg Society for Nature Research in Frankfurt comprises many more bird species than those exhibited here and is the second largest in Germany. These collection objects “behind the scenes” are used by scientists from all over the world for their research.