Rising from the ashes of Brazil's Museu Nacional fire 🔥

The largest and first natural history museum in Latin America was Museu Nacional, the National Museum of Brazil in Rio de Janeiro.When an electrical fire broke out on the museum's bottom level in the evening of September 2nd, 2018, it had just finished commemorating its 200th anniversary. It turned into an inferno as the night went on, devastating the structure and nearly all of the items it housed.Within 10 hours, it became evident how extensive the damage was: an estimated 18 million things.and the samples turned into ash and smoke.30,000 artifacts from Brazilian indigenous tribes and recordings of languages with no living speakers were among the things destroyed.


The floor it was stored on collapsed, destroying the entire entomology collection. 5 million specimens were included in it, including a number of holotypes, which are the unique animals on which a species is based. Future specimen identifications are practically difficult without holotypes. Along with a variety of other recent fossil discoveries, the Museum also housed many of the world's best-preserved pterosaur fossils. Quantification of additional losses has started, yet in many respects, the destruction was, and is incalculable.When I learned of the fire, I was inconsolable.The loss of the collections in Rio affects everyone with an interest in the globe, its histories, and cultures, not only Brazilians or those who work in museums today. The fire depicts a complete theft of the world's information that was accumulated over hundreds of years by just as many people, as well as the life it has supported. I wanted to speak with someone who had been directly impacted by these events because I've been trying to comprehend this loss, what we learn from it, and how we move on from it in the months after the fire initially started. At the time of the fire, paleontologist

Beatriz Hörmanseder was a master's candidate working in the institution.She was in the middle of describing a new species of extinct crocodile that was destroyed and was only known from one specimen.Beatriz: I was researching a species of fossil crocodile from the Ceará region.region, and this specific crocodile stood out from the others in the area. Therefore, it was probably a really crucial species for this, for my study, and I misplaced it.When it first emerged, I could even make out the location, but all that was there was dirt.

Emily: Do you recall what came to your mind when you learned about the fire in the National Gallery?Beatriz: I was at home when I overheard someone say,The museum is on fire."I can recollect that I stood in front of the television for around three hours. every room in the entomology collection caught fire, and it has since spread to the My department, the paleontology department, was the last one standing,along with the mummies and archaeology To burn one.Do you recall some of the ideas that were running through your head at the time?Beatriz: The fire seemed like something out of a movie at first, and we couldn't believe it.similar to. The largest and first natural history museum in Latin America was Museu Nacional, the National Museum of Brazil in Rio de Janeiro.When an electrical fire broke out on the museum's bottom level in the evening of September 2nd, 2018, it had just finished commemorating its 200th anniversary.

It turned into an inferno as the night went on,devastating the structure and nearly all of the items it housed.Within 10 hours, it became evident how extensive the damage was: an estimated 18 million things.and the samples turned into ash and smoke.30,000 artifacts from Brazilian indigenous tribes and recordings of languages