The Gallery of Comparative Anatomy and Paleontology, one of the many components of the National Museum of Natural History, holds one of the most beautiful and comprehensive collection of bones in the world. Inaugurated in 1898, the gallery was created to preserve and present to the public collections of great historic and scientific importance, that were made from the great expeditions of the traveller-naturalists of the 18th and 19th centuries. The museum consist of two floors each consisting of a staggering collection of fossil bones and reconstructed skeletons of a variety of vertebrates including prehistoric animals.

The most astounding of them is the Gallery of Comparative Anatomy where over 1,000 animal skeletons are packed from wall to wall along the length of the gallery room. The skeletons all face the same direction creating an illusion of a massive parade of the dead as visitors enter the space.

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