Zoos and dinosaurs. I have written a lot about Dutch zoos and dinosaurs on these pages. Most zoos in my home country have some degree of dinosaur presence, in the shape of permanent or temporary model exhibitions, interesting homemade sculptures, themed playgrounds or psychedelic light sculptures. But there was one zoo that had a full blown small natural history museum – complete with mounted dinosaur skeletons – as part of its permanent collection, fully integrated with the zoo and featuring several animal enclosures. That is, until it closed in 2015.

The Biochron opened in 1985 under the supervision of Aleid Rensen-Oosting. It was to become the new entry experience to the Noorder Dierenpark in Emmen, a zoo in a small town in the North of the Netherlands. It was part of a master plan by Rensen to revitalize the zoo and greatly increase the educational value on offer. As the first thing a visitor would experience, the Biochron would be an introduction to the park itself, showing the history and evolution of life on Earth. The museum would offer guests a walk through the geological periods from the precambrian to the Cenozoic, after which the visitors would exit into the park itself and see the animals of the world of today. The museum showed fossils, skeletal mounts of dinosaurs andotherprehistoricanimals, dioramas, models, minerals and live animal habitats. An aquarium and a butterfly garden were also part of the Biochron.

For 1985, the museum was revolutionary. What you have to understand about the time period is how thin on the ground dinosaur museums were in this part of the world. When I was a child, if I wanted to go see a proper dinosaur museum, we had to go to Brussels. The Biochron was one of the only serious places to see dinosaurs in the country, at least until Naturalis opened in 1998… and even Naturalis didn’t become truly dedicated to dinosaurs until its 2019 redevelopment.

During my university years in Groningen, in the late 2000s and early 2010s, Noorder Dierenpark was my home zoo. I had a season pass for some years. During this time, I became very acquainted with the Biochron. It was also a time when, believe it or not, my own interest in dinosaurs was at a lower point. I didn’t fully value the Biochron until it was gone. Noorder Dierenpark closed in 2015, the very year I graduated and moved to another part of the country. The zoo in Emmen didn’t vanish, though. It redeveloped across the street as a completely new, bigger park called Wildlands Adventure Zoo, carrying over most of the animal collection (and most of the personnel). But no more Biochron.

Now that it’s been over ten years, I want to take you on a tour through the Biochron as I knew it. I have no more photos of my own from when it was there, but I found many photos on a website called ZooChat. I’ve tried to credit the original photographers as best I could, although they were mostly using pseudonyms. Thanks anyway to all those who put their photos online!

This was the first hall, introducing the Biochron and its thesis statement. Lots of mainly Pleistocene fossils to be seen here, with a mammoth skull as the centerpiece, and much education on the fossilization process. The most interesting object here is that stack of wooden planks in the middle there. What’s going on with that? It is meant to be a visualization of Deep Time. Only the coloured layers on top represent the time of multicellular life on Earth, while only a paper-thin layer on the very top represents the time of modern humans. I remember when a friend of mine told me what an enormous impression this made on him when he was a child. To know just how much history there is to our planet, and just how much of it happened before humans existed. Experiences like that are exactly why places like these are so valuable.

Another main attraction in this hall is this mummified baby mammoth. I really don’t know if this was genuine or a model.

The tour would then take you through this geology themed hallway. One side of the hallway showed exhibits on volcanism and plate tectonics, while the other side showed beautiful basalt formations and other rocks.

Up next was the main dinosaur hall. The sleekly designed hall showed two full sized dinosaur mounts, as well as fossil eggs, footprints, fossil trees and dioramas. In addition, there were live animal enclosures here: a big terrarium with rhinoceros iguanas, and an aquarium with sturgeons and paddlefish. I guess these are animals that count as “prehistoric-looking enough”. I believe there was a crocodile habitat here when it opened, but the crocodiles had moved  by the time I was a regular visitor.

Those dinosaur mounts counted among the coolest things at this zoo. Here is Albertosaurus. I’m pretty sure it was a model, but nevermind, it was very cool. With its long legs, it really towered over the visitor, and you could get a nice close look at it from all angles. I think the museum did not open with these mounts. If I had to guess, I think they were added in the nineties, replacing the crocodiles which moved to another part of the park.

The other mount, Hypacrosaurus, confirms this, as Hypacrosaurus became mostly known from big finds in the nineties. Looking at this mount now, it seems crooked in a way that makes me think it could be a composite skeleton, made up of many disparate parts of many different individuals. The zoo was particularly happy with this specimen, and extensive information was shown on the signs. It’s obscured by the guardrail on this particular photo, but there was also a tiny juvenile Hypacrosaurus skeleton accompanying the adult. There was also a diorama of Maiasaura nesting, showing how excited the curators were to show the nesting behaviour of hadrosaurs. This was all big news in the nineties. A nice botanical backdrop for this one. I think this exhibition was built mainly around this Hypacrosaurus, with the Albertosaurus model added to show its main predator.

Of course, there also had to be a Triceratops skull…

…and a T. rex. There was also a Struthiomimus mount, but I haven’t found any photographs of that one.

You were then invited to go downstairs and into the underground aquarium. Though the aquarium mostly stood alone, there were still some things here that tied in to the themes of the Biochron. Life started in the sea, after all.

This coastal habitat at the aquarium showed horseshoe crabs, which are definitely relevant to natural history. You know I’m uncomfortable with the term “living fossil”, but the zoo sure played up that aspect of them. The caption at the upper right says “400 million years ago…”. This was always a nice, tranquil place.

The aquarium also showed an ammonite wall.

After the aquarium, the tour would take you through the butterfly garden, after which the Biochron continued into its final hall, centered on the evolution of mammals, as well as humans specifically. There was also another animal enclosure here, showing treeshrew, animals that are closely related to the ancestors of primates.

These two mammal faces, a brontothere and a Platybelodon, always drew strong, surprised reactions. They are the rhino and elephant from the uncanny valley, looking quite disturbing to many visitors. I have no idea who the sculptor here was, but I have to commend them on their realistic work. I’m sorry I don’t have a sharper photo.

The other highlights of the mammal hall were these three mounted skeletons. They all showed Pleistocene relatives of familiar animals, in unfamiliar sizes! The giant sloth was utterly elephantine. Its anatomy is so unusual, with those giant arms and that enormous pelvis. I don’t know which sloth it was. I could have been Megatherium, but I might have just filled it in as Megatherium in my head.

It’s hard to fathom how big Megaloceros is until you stand next to it.

Strangest of all to most people would have been the dwarf elephant of Crete! In 2006, it has been found to be, in fact, a mammoth. Mammuthus creticus was among the smallest elephants to ever live, and here to put the lie to the synonymization of “mammoth” with “giant”. Heartbreakingly delightful. Sometimes you just want to kick somebody over all the amazing animals we’ve lost.

The Biochron ended with some visual representations of evolution. This exhibit shows several examples of human-driven selection, with animals that are considerably different from their wild ancestors. Dogs, pigeons, chickens and peafowl who have been subjected to “unnatural selection“.

The final word was on Charles Darwin, with this fictional “Darwin’s Cabinet” showing taxidermy, fossils, skeletons and other objects pertaining to evolution and the study of life on Earth. I guess we must imagine him writing On The Origin Of Species here, surrounded by everything he’s gathered. There’s much anachronistic stuff here, but I found a fictionalized version of Darwin’s office to be somewhat of a staple of natural history museums. On that final thought, of animals being changeable and mutable and life on Earth having a long, convoluted history behind it, were the guests released into the open. all primed to appreciate the zoo and the wonders of nature with a deeper understanding.

The Biochron wasn’t the only museum exhibition at the zoo. The Asia house had an exhibition on elephants, the Americas house one on tribal wear, while the basement of the Africa house, pictured above, had a big taxidermy collection. Bears, rats and snakes all had museum-style exhibits with their habitats. Elsewhere, there was a massive exhibition on the water cycle. It all added so much depth and wonder to a day at the zoo. The commitment to education that was evident throughout the zoo, the vision of Aleid Rensen, was truly admirable. And now, there is a new zoo across the street.

Wildlands was not the only new big zoo to open in the Netherlands in the 21st century, but it was undeniably the most ambitious. Tripling in size from the old zoo, the park not only features large and heavily themed animal habitats, but also modern amusement rides and a number of edutainment shows. Nevertheless, I feel something has been lost in the transition. The educational substance that the museum exhibitions gave the old park has been replaced by live shows, and lots of fictional characters with their own lore. The loss of the aquarium is also a blow. I want to root for Wildlands, which, after an uncertain start, seems to have found its stride as a popular destination park, but it’s hard for me not to miss the old zoo.

What became of the Biochron natural history collection? I understand some of it has been acquired by the late Wouter Oudemans, the founder of a small dinosaur theme park called Landgoed Tenaxx. That’s a park that’s been on my to-visit list for a while, but it’s way out in the sticks and hard to get to. Nevertheless, I hope this year is the year I can make it out there. I’ve been looking forward to covering it on the blog!

The Biochron is gone… but the museum landscape has changed. Was the Biochron once arguably the best dinosaur museum in the Netherlands, we now live in the time of Naturalis and the Oertijdmuseum, as well as fun cheesy places such as nearby Dinoland Zwolle. Dinosaur fans have lots of places to go, and maybe we’ve outgrown the old Biochron. But the least I can do is keep a little bit of the memory of the Biochron alive. Many people have developed their love of natural history here. The value of that can’t be overstated.

Thanks to Wessel Broekhuis and Johnny Norda for helping me with the research for this article.