Location São Paulo, Brazil | Established 1984 | |
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Type University Museum of Veterinary Anatomy Website mav.fmvz.usp.br/index.php/en/ | ||
The Museum of Veterinary Anatomy (MAV) is a museum open to public viewing on the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Science (FMVZ) at USP, the major university in Brazil. Its official name in Portuguese is "Museu de Anatomia Veterinária Prof. Dr. Plínio Pinto e Silva", given in honor of Professor Plinio Pinto e Silva, veterinarian and member of the São Paulo Veterinary Medicine Academy, a pioneer in obtaining the associate professor title at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine of USP. The museum was opened to visitors in 1984 and has a permanent exhibit, studied and collected by teachers, professionals and students of the faculty. Before the museum was open to visitors, the collection was used by college teachers in their classes. Between 2004 and 2008, the MAV was closed to visitors for the transfer of FMVZ headquarters to USP's college campus (known as Cidade Universitária).
Contents
Collection
The museum has a collection of about 2,000 objects, including several mounted animals, skeletons and anatomical models of several species. Most pieces are from mammals, with aquatic, flying, marsupials, carnivores, rodents, horses, bovine, swine and primate species among them, including the human species. In addition to a huge skeleton of an Indian elephant, one of the highlights of the collection is the skeleton of the female rhino known as Cacareco, one of the animals that lived in São Paulo Zoo and became famous in the municipal elections of October 1959, when she received about 100 thousand votes in protest. At the time, the election was conducted with paper ballots and voters wrote the name of their preferred candidate.
The collection attracts not only visitors from outside the university, but also students from the college, seeking extension and monitoring projects for an experience with the university environment and the museum's collection.
Exhibits
Visitors
The Museum of Veterinary Anatomy is considered one of the most important anatomical museums in Brazil and receive an average of 7.600 visitors in recent years. About 80% of total visitors correspond to school groups, especially high school students.
The museum can be visited from Tuesdays to Fridays from 9 am until 5 pm and Saturdays from 9 am to two o'clock. Admission is currently 6 Reais, and students have a half-price discount. The museum also has a small shop area where items such as shirts, hats, pens and animal miniatures, can be purchased as a souvenir.
Guide for teachers
On 17 October 2015, during the Virada Científica (a type of White Night festival for science events) at University of São Paulo, the MAV Guide for Teachers - Elementary School 1 was launched. The purpose of this publication is to highlight parts of the collection that can be used in classrooms by the school teachers of elementary schools. The guide have 58 illustrated pages and was distributed to teachers participating in a training offered by the museum.