This show illustrates what our planet is like today and what we can find on it. Based on the Museum collections, and as such it therefore features a good representation of nature from our own country.
‘Earth Today’ enables visitors to discover the fascinating and diverse world of fossils, animals, plants, algae, fungi, microbes, rocks and minerals:
Rocks and minerals
What is the Earth made of? The planet and its atmosphere support life, but many of their characteristics today are the result of interaction with life.
The fossil register
The remains of organisms that lived in the past and were conserved in buried form, or the traces left by the activity of living beings, are the testimony, memory and archive of the history of life on our planet. There are in Catalonia many valuable paleontological sites that have contributed countless outstanding pieces to the Museum heritage.
Microbes
Invisible to the naked eye, micro-organisms were the sole protagonists of approximately 85% of the planet’s history, both in the oceans and on emerging land. Moreover, they have varying types of metabolism and can thrive in any habitat, even those where life would be impossible for other organisms. Microbes are so tiny that they are often ignored.
Algae
Algae form the link that unites the world of microbes with the world of plants. Just like micro-organisms, little is known about them.
Plants
The basic role that plants play in the ecosystem is to take in energy by photosynthesis, although this is not exclusive to this group (algae and other protists, and some groups of bacteria, are also photosynthetic).
Fungi
Although they were long considered to be plants, fungi are, in fact, a group that shares characteristics with both plants and animals. Their main function is to break down organic matter. The Museum has now unveiled a collection of Catalan mushrooms, as well as a display of fungi and lichen.
Animals
The animal world is probably the most striking and the one best known to man, especially when it comes to large animals. However, there are thousands of species of animals on our planet, occupying many ecological niches and with important roles to play in food chains. This display shows what animals are, how they function, and how they have adapted through evolution in order to obtain food and move about.
- The Big Animals Platform
In the middle of the ‘Earth Today’ section, a module dedicated to big animals has been opened. It shows how the size of animals is important to their survival. Being big has certain advantages, such as:
- A long life expectancy.
- Low mortality.
- Few or no natural predators able to kill an adult specimen.
- Slow population growth.
At the same time, however, big animals are more vulnerable to overexploitation by humans.