Permanent Exhibition

And it is always about the question of how and why we humans destroy or unbalance the ecosystems on which we ourselves depend, what consequences this has for us and the entire planet and what opportunities we ourselves have to change our influence for the better.

In this way, the exhibition makes it clear to young and old how important it is to protect the greatest "treasure" of our blue planet: biodiversity.

In the atrium of the museum, you walk through the centre of an openly presented African savannah landscape equipped with original material. Equipped with binoculars and an identification key, you will get to know its characteristic inhabitants and learn more about the most important feeding relationships and ecological interactions within the ecosystem. And when it drips from the mouth of the zebra drinking at the waterhole or the baobab begins to tell fairy tales, it is easy to embark on an inner journey into this special habitat.

A unique habitat staging over two floors allows our visitors to roam through the undergrowth on supposedly damp rainforest soil and from there climb up through the hollow trunk of a "walk-in strangler fig" into the true-to-life canopy of an African lowland rainforest. Two collecting excursions to African lowland rainforest areas in Gabon and Ghana were undertaken by the Museum Koenig exhibition team in order to procure the original material for the faithful reproduction of the habitat. Following the rainforest staging, the "Rainforest in the global network" area, equipped with many interactive multimedia stations, conveys the extraordinary importance of the tropical rainforests for us humans and the entire planet.

These are just some of the questions to which answers can be found here. The impressive minke whale skeleton and the Arctic tern are representative of the species that migrate back and forth between the polar ice worlds over many thousands of kilometres. The Antarctic mainland is home to a wide variety of penguin species. On the Arctic pack ice, a polar bear mother and her young wait for a seal to emerge, and opposite, a landscape staging with original ground vegetation provides an insight into the wildlife of the Arctic tundra.

A dune landscape with real Sahara sand brings the supposedly hostile, but not so lifeless desert to life. A real waterhole makes it clear that even in the hottest and driest areas of the world, water-dependent animals can find a habitat in some places. Interactive and equipped with many hands-on stations, the exhibition shows where and why there are deserts around the globe and what adaptations animals and plants have developed for life in this world of extremes.

In the classic showcase exhibition, you will encounter many well-known, but certainly also some lesser-known native animal species that are adapted to life in the natural and cultural landscapes of Central Europe, which are predominantly populated and strongly characterised by us humans.

Rivers are extremely dynamic systems: constantly changing water levels and currents result in a constant reorganisation of the habitat for river dwellers. As the course of the river itself changes, so do the conditions and structures to which the animals have adapted in a variety of ways. From the source to the estuary, the exhibition contrasts a tropical and a native watercourse in elaborately designed aquariums. Over 16,000 litres of water are kept "in flow" using sophisticated water technology to provide the living river inhabitants from over 60 animal species with a near-natural habitat.

The exhibition addresses all these questions and shows the exciting work of the researchers at Museum Koenig Bonn. It integrates the museum's scientific collections, explains research methods and presents specific research projects. Anyone who wants to can become a researcher themselves.

Biodiversity research is at the centre of our work at the Leibniz Institute for the Analysis of Biodiversity Change (LIB), to which Museum Koenig Bonn belongs. Our scientists are investigating various questions to get to the bottom of the biodiversity that makes our planet so unique. The aim is to record the biological diversity of our planet as quickly and comprehensively as possible so that effective protective measures can be taken.

The scenes, which have been faithfully reproduced down to the last detail, immerse the viewer in Central European deciduous forests, sea-swept rocks at the North Cape or North African marshlands. The three-dimensional depictions of animals and landscapes created by Koenig's best taxidermists merge seamlessly in perspective with the two-dimensional background paintings by Berlin painter Victor Stötzner-Lund. For the viewer, they create the perfect illusion of spatial depth and realism. The listed dioramas in the Museum Koenig still bear witness to the high standards that Alexander Koenig set for his own museum and are internationally recognised for their high quality.