Reproduction The meaning of life
The Groote Museum is divided into zones. Discover here what there is to see and experience in the zone about reproduction.
A main purpose in life: reproduction. The preservation of the species. Sometimes organisms do this on their own, such as microbes dividing, but often sex is involved. Fertilization.
Whoever has offspring - whether they start in an acorn or a womb- passes themselves on as a link in an endless series of hereditary information. Even the tiniest seed that has been waiting for years to germinate is a database, a piece of life’s great memory.
Discover this zone
LUCA
All organisms have the same ancestor: LUCA, Last Universal Common Ancestor. Discover LUCA's journey and watch the animation in the museum.
Tree as historian
This tree, planted in 1815 in what later became ARTIS, tells the stories of the events that took place during the tree's lifetime.
Goudreinet, Kanzi, Elstar and umm...
Not so long ago there were thousands of apple varieties. For too cumbersome for the supermarkets, which limited their repertoire to a few standard varieties. As a result, an enormous variety of flavours, bites, smells and colors disappeared along with the ability of apple trees to adapt to new conditions. Because the diversity, and thus the health, of all plant and animal species is rapidly declining, genetic material is stored in seed banks and ‘frozen zoos’.
The three of us
In ruffs, you will find not one, but three types of males. ‘Independents’ compete with mock fights for the attention of females. Around them hang the satellite males, which are a lot less aggressive and take advantage of the females that are attracted by the mock fights. The faeder, the third type, is almost indistinguishable from the brown-coloured females. When it gets the chance, it mates with females as well as other males.
