Arusha Natural History Museum

After lunch, I walked the 5 minutes to this quirky little museum. It was built in the old German colonial Boma (fort) and is a collection of individual exhibits.

The natural history building has a number of animals and birds, but also covering the walls are many photos from an extremely good nature photographer (Dick Persson)

The history of the Colony is notable for the usual stories of colonial oppression, but even more for how unsuccessful the colony was. They kept bringing in settlers who failed to adapt to local conditions so that by the time of the early 20th century, there were only a couple of hundred settlers.

They had another human evolution exhibit. Every country seems to have one. This of course emphasizes the findings at Olduvai and the very important 3.2 million year old footprints of Australopithecus afarensis (e.g. Lucy) found at nearby Laetoli.

Finally there is Tom the tortoise who might be 200 years old.Read more