Eocene - At the beginning of our world

The Gastornis is a large ratite that lived in the Eocene. LIB preparators have assembled and colored this exhibit, whose template is a reconstruction, from 3D-printed bones.

Viktor Hartung, responsible for exhibition conception at LIB, developed the content of the Eocene exhibition together with Ulrich Kotthoff, director of the Museum of Nature - Geology.

Amber plays a particularly important role in the special exhibition: We show "sunstones" in a great variety with areas of origin from all over the world and discuss the extraction of amber on four examples.

Viktor Hartung (r.) and Ulrich Kotthoff (l.) look at enlarged amber inclusions.

Termite from Baltic amber. Termites are a heat-loving group and are not found in Central or Northern Europe today, but in the Eocene they also lived here.

Amber represents an important showcase into the ecosystems of the past: Especially smaller animals like insects can be discovered well preserved in it. Here fossil insects in amber (l.) and oil shale (r.) can be compared.

Ulrich Kotthoff, director of the Museum of Nature - Geology, in the room of "sunstones", where mining methods of amber are critically reflected.

This pseudoscorpion was created by Julia Stoess on a scale of 100:1. Based on photos of a similar pseudoscorpion that is still alive today 
pseudoscorpion still living today and using the Zbrush technique, the artist made a model that also shows the special features of the species living in the Eocene.

In the Eocene, our world still looked different: The two globes show the change of continents and landscapes on our planet: from partially flooded land masses and dense forests in the Eocene to the spread of grasslands and deserts in the present.

From the point of view of a geoscientist, the Eocene is not that far back. There are relatively many "showcases" into this time. These include deep-sea deposits, but also sedimentary rocks from earlier lakes, such as from the Messel pit near Darmstadt, from which these fossils come.

A prehistoric horse. Mammals and dinosaurs evolved at about the same time. But while the dinos soon produced gigantic forms and dominated the earth's surface for 135 million years, the mammals remained inconspicuous for a long time as insectivores and small animal hunters and were primarily nocturnal.

Hands-on research: What kind of fur do you think the Leptictidium, an extinct mammal that hopped on two legs, had?

A look back to the Eocene: As a matter of course, (molded) giant ants crawl along the tree trunk. I wonder if they get caught in the resin?