Munich - State Palaeontology and Geology Collection

(Local Name: Staatssammlung für Paläontologie und Historische Geologie) The State Palaeontology and Geology Collection occupies a hybrid and somewhat monumental building designed by Leonard Romeis, originally for a school of commercial art.

The palaeontological section has an extensive display of animal and other fossils from crucial epochs in the Earth's history. The particular strength of the collection lies in the material from the Swabian and Franconian Jura (e.g. ichthyosaurs from the Holzmaden Lias, pterosaurs from around Eichstätt in the upper Jura). Other highlights include the skull of a triceratops from Wyoming and the skeleton (cast) of a giant elephant which perished in the Mühldorf/Inn area sometime in the Late Tertiary. Also worth seeing are the fossils of Ice Age fauna and the special display devoted to the Nördlingen Reis meteorite crater.