Shanghai Natural History Museum

Shanghai Natural History Museum, opened in 2015 in the grounds of the Shanghai Jing'an Sculpture Park 上海静安雕塑公园, significantly upgraded the previous charming but aging colonial-era institution, housed since 1956 in the Shanghai Cotton Exchange Building (at No.260 East Yan'an Road, in the Huangpu District).

The museum now occupies a specially-designed building with 32,200 square meters of exhibition space. Its collection is among the world's largest, totaling over 11,000 specimens. Its Chinese fossil collection, including local dinosaurs and other prehistoric mega-fauna, is especially noteworthy. The bulk of the collection is organized into exhibitions grouped by geographical region.

While taxidermy had contributed to the core of the old museum collection, in the new venue this has been augmented in multiple dimensions. The best of the stuffed animals remain, but the rows of charmingly decrepit pickling jars have been firmly retired. They have been replaced by more selective displays, including audio-visual support, and lifelike -- sometimes animatronic -- models.