Exhibition "Nature and Ecology of Kuban"

About exhibition

The exhibition tells about the richness and diversity of nature in Krasnodar Krai. The display includes a new section, "The Stone Chronicle of Kuban"; among the exhibits are samples of rocks, minerals and ores, and paleontological finds. Of special interest is the unique, the only in the world (!) skull of a fossil Phanagorian elephant, the find being 2 million years old. From the marine inhabitants you can see the only shark found off the shores of Krasnodar Krai — the spiny dogfish (katran); one of the most beautiful fishes of the Black Sea — the gurnard (trigla), mentioned in the saying "fish soup from the gurnard"; the pipefish/needlefish, in which the male cares for the offspring; and the sea devil or European anglerfish — one of the deepest-water predators of the area. The exhibition presents a large variety of forest birds and animals common to this zone — the common hedgehog, considered one of the most disease-prone animals of the Kuban, badgers, well known for their healing badger fat, whose properties are almost comparable to those of fish oil. In the open-air section are animals characteristic of the ecosystem of this part of the Western Caucasus, preserved almost unchanged. One of them is the Caucasian bison (zubr) — the emblem of the reserve. Also present are one of the largest birds of Krasnodar Krai — the white-headed vulture with a wingspan of up to 2.7 m — as well as the Caucasian bear, Siberian roe deer and the wolf.