The Bernardino Rivadavia Natural Sciences Argentine Museum (Spanish: Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales Bernardino Rivadavia) is a public museum located in the Caballito neighborhood of Buenos Aires, Argentina.
The museum is named after Bernardino Rivadavia, who proposed its creation in 1812
The museum owes its existence to a proposal made by Bernardino Rivadavia before the First Triumvirate of the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata in 1812. The ongoing struggle for Independence from the Spanish colonial period stalled Rivadavia's project, however, until 1823, when he promoted construction of a building for the museum as a member of Governor Martín Rodríguez's cabinet.[1]
The original museum opened in 1826 and was housed downtown in a loft inside the Santo Domingo Convent, which had been made available to host Rivadavia after his expulsion of the Dominican order from Buenos Aires. Rivadavia closely oversaw the construction of the institution, the first of its kind in South America, and appointed Italian Argentine botanist Carlos Ferraris as its first director. Receiving a large gift of materials and equipment from Presbyterian Minister Bartolomé Muñoz in 1813,[2] the museum started with a collection of 800 animal and 1500 mineral specimens, among others. Rivadavia also appointed a noted Italian astronomer, Ottaviano Fabrizio Mossotti, who installed the nation's first observatory, meteorological station and experimental physics laboratory during his tenure at the facility from 1828 to 1835. Among those who consulted the museum's growing staff of researchers was Alexander von Humboldt, who requisitioned numerous meteorological studies for the Institut de France.
The rise of the paramount Governor of Buenos Aires, Juan Manuel de Rosas, turned to be the renowned institution's undoing. Devoutly religious, Governor Rosas returned the convent to the Dominican order in October 1835, forcing the museum to relocate to smaller, nearby buildings. Much of its equipment and research was lost during the forced relocation, and Ferrari and Mossotti returned to Italy. Rosas' overthrow in 1852 helped lead to the creation of the Society of Friends of Natural History, who had the museum relocated in 1854 to the "Illuminated block," the former Temple of St. Ignatius and its prestigious academy maintained by the Jesuits before their suppression in 1773. The recovering of the museum motivated the German naturalist Hermann Burmeister to stay in Buenos Aires. A visit to the museum followed in 1857. Recommended by Humboldt, Herman was appointed as its director in 1862. Burmeister founded the Argentine Paleontological Society in concert with the University of Buenos Aires and the Academy of Natural Sciences in Córdoba in 1870, extending the interest for the field to the nation's hinterland. Burmeister also founded the museum's first periodical in 1874, opening the museum and its research to active peer review. Notable among the European researchers who took notice was Dutch zoologist Hendrik Weyenbergh, who arrived in Córdoba, where he founded the Argentine National Academy of Sciences.
The current seat of the museum in Caballito, Buenos Aires, under construction. It was opened in 1937
The museum published numerous works under Burmeister's direction, who also donated a sizable part of its growing collection for the sake of the new La Plata Museum in 1884. An accident at the museum cost its noted German Argentine director his life in 1892. The museum was later directed by zoologist Florentino Ameghino, its first Argentinian director. Ameghino incorporated adjoining buildings to the museum, which remained inadequate for its vast collection and facilities. Addressing this, Director Martín Doello-Jurado secured Congress' authorization for new museum facilities in 1925. Built on the western end of Parque Centenario. The first wing of the new museum was given in 1929 and the institution was inaugurated in 1937.[1]
Part of the museum's collection was transferred to the University of Buenos Aires Ethnographic Museum during the administration of President Juan Perón, who dismissed Doello-Jurado in 1946 as part of a wider intervention in national academics. Perón, however, also ordered the construction in 1948 of the museum's annex, which housed the National Natural Sciences Institute. The museum was transferred to the National Research Council (CONICET) in 1996 and, continuing to thrive, an internet data bank was created for the museum in 2002.
Karl Hermann Konrad Burmeister was a German Argentine zoologist, entomologist, herpetologist, botanist, and coleopterologist. He served as a professor at the University of Halle, headed the museum there and published the Handbuch der Entomologie (1832–1855) before moving to Argentina where he worked until his death.
Roberto Raul Dabbene was an Italian-Argentine ornithologist.
Francisco Pascasio Moreno was a prominent explorer and academic in Argentina, where he is usually referred to as Perito Moreno. Perito Moreno has been credited as one of the most influential figures in the Argentine incorporation of large parts of Patagonia and its subsequent development.
Florentino Ameghino was an Argentine naturalist, paleontologist, anthropologist and zoologist, whose fossil discoveries on the Argentine Pampas, especially on Patagonia, rank with those made in the western United States during the late 19th century. Along with his two brothers – Carlos and Juan – Florentino Ameghino was one of the most important founding figures in South American paleontology.
Rodolfo Aníbal Coria, is an Argentine paleontologist.
Velocisaurus is a genus of noasaurid theropod dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous period of Argentina.
The Argentine National Historical Museum is located in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and is a museum dedicated to the history of Argentina, exhibiting objects relating to the May Revolution and the Argentine War of Independence.
Astrapotheria is an extinct order of South American and Antarctic hoofed mammals that existed from the late Paleocene to the Middle Miocene, 59 to 11.8 million years ago. Astrapotheres were large, rhinoceros-like animals and have been called one of the most bizarre orders of mammals with an enigmatic evolutionary history.
The La Plata Museum is a natural history museum in La Plata, Argentina. It is part of the Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo of the National University of La Plata.
Revista del Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales is a peer-reviewed natural sciences journal published by the Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales. This journal is a merger of all subseries of: Revista del Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales "Bernardino Rivadavia" e Instituto Nacional de Investigación de las Ciencias Naturales, and all subseries of: Comunicaciones del Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales "Bernardino Rivadavia" e Instituto Nacional de Investigación de las Ciencias Naturales.
Juan Bautista Ambrosetti was an Argentine archaeologist, ethnographer and naturalist who helped pioneer anthropology in his country.
Astrapotheriidae is an extinct family of herbivorous South American land mammals that lived from the Late Eocene to the Middle Miocene 37.71 to 15.98 million years ago. The most derived of the astrapotherians, they were also the largest and most specialized mammals in the Tertiary of South America. There are two sister taxa: Eoastrapostylopidae and Trigonostylopidae.
Francisco Javier Muñiz was an Argentine colonel, legislator, and medical doctor. He treated patients and died during the Great Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1871. He was considered the first important naturalist from Argentina.
Leucanopsis infucata is a moth of the family Erebidae. It was described by Carlos Berg in 1882 and is found in Argentina.
Paracles argentina is a moth of the subfamily Arctiinae first described by Carlos Berg in 1877. It is found in Corrientes Province, Argentina.
Paracles uruguayensis is a moth of the subfamily Arctiinae first described by Carlos Berg in 1886. It is found in Uruguay.
Stenocercus doellojuradoi is a species of lizard in the family Tropiduridae. The species is native to southeastern South America.
Deuterotherium is an extinct genus of South American native ungulates, which lived during the Deseadan age of the Oligocene in what is now Argentina. Its type species is Deuterotherium distichum. It was named by Florentino Ameghino in 1895. The holotype of Deuterotherium distichum is a calcaneum. It was formerly identified as a proterotheriid litoptern. In 1999, Shockey argued Deuterotherium was certainly not a litoptern and interpreted it as a notohippid notoungulate. In research by Soria posthumously published in 2001, Soria considered Deuterotherium a nomen dubium.
Phlyctaenopyga is an extinct genus of glyptodont. It lived from the Late Miocene to the Early Pliocene, and its fossilized remains were discovered in South America.
Elena Martínez Fontes was an Argentine biologist who specialized in marine invertebrates. She is known for being one of four scientists called the "Four of Melchior" referring to the Argentinean temporary base in Antarctica. She was there In November 1968 with the Argentineans Irene Bernasconi, a specialist in echinoderms, the bacteriologist María Adela Caría and the specialist in marine algae, Carmen Pujals. They were the first female Argentine scientists to carry out fieldwork in Antarctica.
↑ Penchaszadeh, Pablo E., ed. (2012). El Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales 200 Años. Buenos Aires: Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales Bernardino Rivadavia. p.347. ISBN9789872817008.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
