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Tuesday, Apr 08, 2008
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Rare collections exhibited at museum

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These are collected by former Indian Ambassador Abasar Beuria and his wife Tripti

Photo: Ashoke Chakrabarty

A must-see: Visitors throng the museum after the inauguration of new gallery of Madagascar and wild Africa in Bhubaneswar on Monday. -

BHUBANESWAR: The unique collection of the Regional Museum of Natural History here went richer on Monday with addition of the precious collections of former Indian Ambassador Abasar Beuria and his wife Tripti Beuria.

The Oriya couple, who preferred to settle down in the City following Mr. Beuria’s retirement, has become an integral part of the cultural life of the capital with their involvement in heritage conservation and promotion of Gandhian philosophy. Their gifts to the Museum were collected from Africa during Mr. Beuria’s three-year tenure in the island nation of Madagaskar.

The rarest of the rare offer includes a colourful collection of a wide variety of butterflies, moths, beetles and scorpions. And there are at least 50 fossils dating back to 100 to 600 million years old that includes bone of a dinosaur, scorpio conch, cowri and the special Madagaskar rose quartz.

Huge crowd

However, what has drawn the huge crowd to this exclusive gallery at the museum is the egg of the extinct elephant bird (aepyornis) that was last spotted on earth in 1650.“This is one of the 36 such eggs preserved around the globe. The egg measuring 13 inches long and 9.5 inches wide was laid by the bird that was 10 feet tall and was weighing about 454 kilogram,” explained Mr.Beuria.

Secretary of the Ministry of Forest and Environment Ms.Meena Gupta inaugurated the gallery that showcases the Beuria couple’s collection. She later inaugurated the herpetology gallery developed with donations from Professor S.K.Dutta of North Orissa University that includes a variety of snakes, frogs, lizards and toads.

Apart from the collectors and Ms. Meena, eminent writer Prativa Ray, former NMNH director Dr.S.M.Nair and Museum scientist-in-charge Dr.P.Ray were present during the inaugural ceremony.

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