Great museums of natural history around the world

A Great Musuem Of Natural History

For me a great musuem of natural history is one that is literally outdoors! Dismals Canyon, in Northwest Alabama is one of nature’s most beautiful natural parks. It has been around for thousands of years and you can see it when you visit estimated to be 8,000 B.C.

Dismals Canyons is where they shot part of the tv documentary on When Dinosaurs Roamed America. The land is still as lush and undisturbed as it was back when the dinosaurs were around.

What makes it a natural “museum” to me, instead of a building with natural history in it, is the fact you can walk through the park and find floral and fona not found anywhere else in the world. You can look and see the caves where the Native American Indidans lived, the last was the Cherokee Indians. And the caves are named, and you can see parts of their lives in them liking cooking items that would of been used way before pots and pans came around.

There are waterfalls, fast running rivers, fresh clear water where you can look and see the stones of time that sit at the bottom of the river or streams. A family who went there took some footage of Dismals Canyon for UTube, the link is: www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1IyCB xP7Wg. It is sort of silly and funny in spots but you can see why Dismals Canyon is beautiful. The official website for Dismals Canyon is: http://www.dismalscanyon.com/t hecanyon/index.html, and it tells you about the different types of trees and flowers native to the area. The points of interest and pictures of the different areas of the park.

One of the wonderful things about Dismals Canyon is the fact that one species of life only lives in a few places outside of New Zealand and Dismals Canyon is one of them. The Dismalities are “glowworms”. “Colloquially known as Dismalites, they are the larvae stage in the life of an insect called the fungus gnat “Arachnocampa luminosa” that emits a bright blue-green light to attract food, in the form of other flying insects”. (1) The humidity of the canyon is a perfect place for them to live and there is enough food there to survive. And if anyone is a Harry Potter fan, you will recognize the word “luminosa” from the books or movies. It is Latin for light, which these fungus gnats do, give light.

You are able to camp or rents a cabin on the floor of the canyon, or just take a day trip or a nightly tour to see the dismalities. No matter what, you will be enthralled by the beauty of nature, the songs of insects and birds and peace and tranquality Mother Nature gives to the soul. If ever in Alabama, check it out, you won’t be disappointed.