The Royal Ontario Museum Bat Cave (French: La Grotte des chauves-souris) is a gallery at the Royal Ontario Museum that presents wax sculptures of bats in their simulated natural habitat. [1] Consisting of twenty species of bats, among a variety of invertebrates, the gallery allows visitors to learn about the behaviour and biology of bats, through engaging in various educational panels, videos and models. [2]
It is currently located on the second level, of the Philosopher's Walk Wing in the museums Heritage Building. [2]
The bat cave was originally built in the 1980s as a replica of the 3-kilometre (1.9 mi) St. Clair Cave in Jamaica. [3] In the early 2000s however, the Royal Ontario Museum received a grant to renovate the cave among two new Roman and Byzantine Galleries. [3] [4] Thus updated sound effects, dim lighting, and rock models were incorporated to make the cave appear more realistic. Today, the exhibit stands at 1,700 square feet (160 m2). [3] With over 300 new wax models of bats and bugs that are even more authentic than before, [3] visitors now also have an opportunity to see bald pink baby bats, amidst an eerie dark backdrop that has come to be known as the nursery cave. [3]
Before guests enter the mouth of the Bat Cave, there is a series of panels that address various common questions and curiosities concerning bats and their natural habitat. [5] Guests learn about how bats navigate in the dark, how they see, how they travel through the dark and if they are similar to humans. [5] In addition, guests learn about their current patterns of behaviour and eating habits, among many other things presented in formats on the wall. [5]
At the Cave Mouth, there are a variety of other descriptions that historicize how the cave was modelled after the St. Clair Cave in Jamaica. [5] The panel presents a detailed account of what the cave looks, sounds and smells like. It informs the visitors of the kinds of insects and bats they would see if they were to visit the cave. [5]
There is also a Bat Cave Field Guide that helps visitors identify the six species of bats they may encounter in the cave. [5]
Within the bat cave lies a variety of bats, cockroaches and other invertebrates that simulate a realistic portrayal of the St. Clair Cave in Jamaica. [5]
There are currently the following areas in the cave:
The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum is a 98-acre zoo, aquarium, botanical garden, natural history museum, publisher, and art gallery founded in 1952. Located just west of Tucson, Arizona, it features two miles (3.2 km) of walking paths traversing 21 acres of desert landscape. It is one of the most visited attractions in Southern Arizona.
The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) is a museum of art, world culture and natural history in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is one of the largest museums in North America and the largest in Canada. It attracts more than one million visitors every year, making the ROM the most-visited museum in Canada. The museum is north of Queen's Park, in the University of Toronto district, with its main entrance on Bloor Street West. Museum subway station is named after the ROM and, since a 2008 renovation, is decorated to resemble the institution's collection at the platform level.
Science North is an interactive science museum in Greater Sudbury, Ontario, Canada.
The Florida Museum of Natural History (FLMNH) is Florida's official state-sponsored and chartered natural history museum. Its main facilities are located at 3215 Hull Road on the campus of the University of Florida in Gainesville.
The Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory, is a museum and factory tour attraction located in Louisville, Kentucky's "Museum Row", part of the West Main District of downtown. The museum showcases the story of Louisville Slugger baseball bats in baseball and in American history. The museum also creates temporary exhibits with more of a pop culture focus, including collaborations with the Norman Rockwell Museum, the Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center, Coca-Cola, LEGO artists Sean Kenney and Jason Burik, Topps Trading Cards, The Children's Museum of Indianapolis, and Ripley's Believe It or Not!.
COSI, officially the Center of Science and Industry, is a science museum and research center in Columbus, Ohio. COSI was opened to the public on 29 March 1964 and remained there for 35 years. In 1999, COSI was moved to a 320,000-square-foot (30,000 m2) facility, designed by Japanese architect Arata Isozaki along a bend in the Scioto River in the Franklinton neighborhood. COSI features more than 300 interactive exhibits throughout themed exhibition areas.
The Jamaican, common, or Mexican fruit bat is a frugivorous bat species native to the Neotropics.
The Royal Alberta Museum (RAM) is a museum of human and natural history in Downtown Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, located north of City Hall. The museum is the largest in western Canada with more than 7,600 square metres (82,000 sq ft) exhibition space and 38,900 square metres (419,000 sq ft) in total.
The McLaughlin Planetarium is a former working planetarium whose building occupies a space immediately to the south of the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, at 100 Queen's Park. Founded by a grant from philanthropist Colonel R. Samuel McLaughlin, the facility was opened to the public on October 26, 1968. It had, for its time, a state-of-the-art electro-mechanical Zeiss planetarium projector that was used to project regular themed shows about the stars, planets, and cosmology for visitors. By the 1980s the planetarium's sound-system and domed ceiling were used to display dazzling music-themed laser-light shows. The lower levels of the planetarium contained a gallery called the "Astrocentre" that featured space-related exhibits, related artifacts on the history of astronomy and was also home of the world's first commercial Stellarium
Night at the Museum is a 2006 American fantasy comedy film directed by Shawn Levy and written by Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon. It is based on the 1993 children's book of the same name by Croatian illustrator Milan Trenc. The film had an ensemble cast of Ben Stiller in the lead role, Carla Gugino, Dick Van Dyke, Mickey Rooney, Bill Cobbs, and Robin Williams. It tells the story of a divorced father who applies for a job as a night watchman at New York City's American Museum of Natural History and subsequently discovers that the exhibits, animated by a magical Egyptian artifact, the tablet of Akhmenrah, come to life at night. 20th Century Fox released the film on December 22, 2006, and it grossed $574.5 million worldwide, becoming the 5th highest-grossing film of 2006, but received mixed reviews from critics.
The Future of Flight Aviation Center, officially known as Boeing Future of Flight, is an aviation museum and education center located at the northwest corner of Paine Field in Mukilteo, Washington. It is the starting point for the Boeing Tour, a guided tour of a portion of the nearby Boeing Everett Factory in Everett, Washington. The 73,000-square-foot (6,800 m2) facility, owned by Snohomish County via Paine Field and operated by Boeing, opened in 2005 at a cost of $24 million; it is funded by a sales and use tax from the county via its public facilities district. The museum includes a 28,000-square-foot (2,600 m2) gallery containing static and interactive exhibits and displays as well as a 240-seat theater, café and shops.
The Lapworth Museum of Geology is a geological museum run by the University of Birmingham and located on the university's campus in Edgbaston, south Birmingham, England. The museum is named after the geologist Charles Lapworth, its origins dating back to 1880. It reopened in 2016 following a £2.7 million redevelopment project that created new galleries and displays, as well as modern visitor and educational facilities.
The Iziko South African Museum is a South African national museum located in Cape Town. The museum was founded in 1825, the first in the country. It has been on its present site in the Company's Garden since 1897. The museum houses important African zoology, palaeontology and archaeology collections.
Carlsbad Caverns National Park is an American national park in the Guadalupe Mountains of southeastern New Mexico. The primary attraction of the park is the show cave Carlsbad Cavern. Visitors to the cave can hike in on their own via the natural entrance or take an elevator from the visitor center.
The George R. Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art is a ceramics museum in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The museum is situated within University of Toronto's St. George campus, in downtown Toronto. The 4,299.2-square-metre (46,276 sq ft) museum building was designed by Keith Wagland, with further expansions and renovations done by KPMB Architects.
Pokhara Valley is the second-largest valley in the hilly region of Nepal. It lies in the western part of Nepal. The cities of Pokhara and Lekhnath are in the valley. As of 2023, Pokhara has a population of 599,504. It is located in Gandaki zone, 203 km (126 mi) west of Kathmandu Valley. The city of Pokhara is one of the major cities of Nepal and it, like Kathmandu Valley, is extremely vulnerable to earthquakes due to its clay soil and liquefaction potential.
The Clement Railroad Hotel Museum, housed in the Tennessee Historical Commission’s Hotel Halbrook State Historic Site and operated by the Governor Frank G. Clement Railroad Hotel and Historical Museum Corporation, Inc. The building is one of the few remaining examples of a railroad hotel in the State of Tennessee. It is located in historic downtown Dickson, Tennessee and since opening on June 2, 2009, the museum has hosted thousands of visitors.
The Musical Instrument Museum (MIM) is located in Phoenix, Arizona. Opened in April 2010, it is the largest museum of its type in the world. The collection of over 15,000 musical instruments and associated objects includes examples from nearly 200 countries and territories, representing every inhabited continent. Some larger countries such as the United States, Mexico, India, China, and Brazil have multiple displays with subsections for different types of ethnic, folk, and tribal music.
Madame Tussauds Washington D.C. was a wax museum located in Washington D.C., the capital city of the United States. The attraction opened in October 2007 and became the 12th Madame Tussauds venue worldwide, and featured wax sculptures of famous figures from politics, culture, sports, music and television. In comparison to other Madame Tussauds venues, the venue features more waxworks of political figures, with sculptures of all 45 U.S. presidents displayed.
Ojo Guareña is a karst complex located in the Cantabrian Mountains of Castile and Leon, Spain, declared a natural monument by the government of Castile and Leon in 1996. It is composed of over 90 kilometres (56 mi) of galleries and passages within an area of some 13,850 hectares. The limestone formation containing the system is approximately 100 metres (330 ft) thick and sits on a massive water-resistant layer of marl. The caves were formed in the limestone by erosion sometime within the Coniacian Age. Ojo Guareña was considered the greatest karst system of the Iberian Peninsula until 2009, when a significant length of new passages was discovered in the Mortillano system.