Everything You Need to Know About the BioMuseo in Panama City

If there’s only one museum you get to during your visit to Panama City, make it the BioMuseo. Situated along the Amador Causeway, there’s no missing this distinctly abstract and colourful building. The BioMuseo is an extremely modern, interactive museum that focuses on Panama’s biodiversity and unique location in the natural world. The Panama isthmus truly links North and South Americas and the BioMuseo explores the significance of this through a combination of oversized visuals, immersive experiences and awe-inducing displays. You’ll come out of the BioMuseo knowing a lot more about Panama’s rich environments and the interconnectedness of its species. In this guide, I’ll be covering exactly what you’ll see on a visit to the BioMuseo.

• Visiting Panama City in the future? Check out my 24 hour guide. Its an essential read for a quick stay in the city, and you can read it HERE.

The BioMuseo – The Basics:

• Where? Amador Causeway 136, Panama City.
• When? The BioMuseo is currently open from 10.00am to 3.00pm Thursdays and Fridays, and 11.00am to 4.00pm Saturdays and Sundays. It is closed from Monday to Wednesday as at the time of writing.
• How much? General admission to the museum for non-resident adults is $18.00 USD. Children aged 5 to 17 years get in for $11.00 USD. Discounted rates apply for Panamanian citizens.
• How to get there: Being on the Amador Causeway, the BioMuseo is easy to get to. If you take an Uber from Casco Viejo, you’ll be there within 15 minutes. Alternatively, the Albrook Line 1 metro goes to the Causeway and back, though I didn’t use the public transport system in Panama.
• Website: https://biomuseo.org/en/

The BioMuseo Building

Before we talk about the actual BioMuseo itself, we have to talk about that building. Chances are you’ll be spending a bit of time checking it before you go inside anyway. The building was designed by the renowned architect Frank Gehry (his first foray into Latin America) and to say its vibrantly coloured and eye catching is an understatement. While its open to interpretation, the colourful roof panels and columns are supposedly set out to symbolise the powerful and uncontrolled forces of nature that have given rise to the immense biodiversity found in Panama and more generally globally. Some might say that the building’s design evokes images of tree trunks and branches reaching out into a dynamic canopy of colour. One thing is for sure though – if you lined all the building’s panels up against one another, they’d cover a soccer field!

The museum is a fairly new attraction to Panama City. It only opened in 2014, and you’ll notice throughout your visit that this is a much more modern museum than other interpretative sites throughout the city.

Exhibits in the BioMuseo

The BioMuseo is made up of 8 permanent galleries that are designed to be experienced in a linear manner. If you haven’t pre-booked your ticket, you’ll buy it in an outdoor central area before being led through the doors into the first exhibition gallery. In addition to the museum’s galleries, there is also a gift shop and cafe on site (which I stopped by for lunch), and the museum may also host temporary exhibitions from time to time.

Most of the signage throughout the BioMuseo is in both Spanish and English, so if you’re reading this, you won’t have any problems understanding what you’re seeing throughout the museum. There is an audioguide available on the museum’s official website (download it in advance if you want to use it), but its fairly basic. There’s lots of information panels that cover all the content anyway, so I don’t think the audio guide adds that much to your experience.

You should plan on spending about 2 hours for a reasonably comprehensive tour of the BioMuseo’s permanent exhibits. I’ll now cover those exhibits in the order they’re designed to be experienced.

Gallery of Biodiversity

Your introduction to the BioMuseo is (fittingly) the Gallery of Biodiversity. Here you’ll learn what biodiversity actually is, which is an extremely important concept if you’re going to get much out of the museum. Biodiversity comprises the totality of living organisms and ecosystems on our planet and the huge variation of species and environments. Protecting biodiversity is critical, given how interlinked the components of the natural world are, as you’ll learn later in the museum. Unfortunately, we’re losing biodiversity on earth – while new species are still being discovered, others are becoming extinct in the face of human growth and expansion. That message is conveyed by the gallery’s multicoloured wall covered in silhouettes of different animal species from Panama. They’re all colour-coded, with green meaning the species is found in abundance, while red species are critically endangered. Those shown in black have already been declared extinct.

Its a sobering start to the museum. You’ll learn that habitat destruction is the main cause of extinction. Unfortunately more than 7 million hectares of forest are being cleared each year (more than the entire size of Panama). Under current trends, its made quite clear that many species alive today could also vanish over the next few centuries.

Panamarama

After waiting around in the first exhibit, you’ll be ushered into the Panamarama cinema. This highly immersive multi-sensory experience is a highlight of BioMuseo. As you sit or stand, you’re surrounded by 10 massive screens around, above and below you. When the presentation begins, you’ll be taken on a journey across Panama’s diverse landscapes and ecosystems, ranging from the Caribbean beaches to the mountain forests. As the film rolls along, you’ll be fully engaged as you hear the sounds of nature and even get a brief spray as a tropical storm rolls in. Since I didn’t get to venture outside of Panama City, this was an incredible overview of the country’s diverse environments. My only complaint was that its only about 5 minutes. I would have happily sat through more of it!

Building the Bridge

Leaving the theatre, you’re free to explore the rest of the museum at your own pace, beginning with the Building the Bridge exhibit. Here, you’ll learn about the geological processes that led to the creation of the Panama isthmus over millions of years. 70 million years ago, Panama was under the sea and the American continents were divided by ocean.

In this exhibit, you follow the process step by step, starting with the formation of basalt rocks on the sea floor through plate tectonic movements. Over time, volcanoes emerged and by 45 million years ago, Panama was a chain of volcanic islands. With volcanos come ash and lava, which in turn gradually connected the islands. As the plates of the earth continued to collide, more eruptions followed and the mountainous backbone of Panama continued to emerge. Some three million years ago, Panama formed a land bridge between the two Americas, quite literally changing the world.

The formation of Panama transformed weather patterns and oceanic circulation (after all, there was now a mass of land separating that previously vast ocean!). Its even thought that these changes may have played a role in the start of the Ice Age which ultimately led to hominid ancestors developing in Africa. Panama didn’t just change the world, it quite literally could have led to our very existence!

How do we know all this? Geological research. This exhibit contains a number of rock formations and fossils that provide valuable clues to the phenomena of plate tectonics. You’ll also come across a seismograph – an instrument used to measure the constantly moving plates on the earth’s surface.

Worlds Collide

One of the most memorable halls in the BioMuseo is the Worlds Collide gallery. Following on from the story of Panama’s formation, this exhibit is all about the impact it had on the evolution of life. The gallery is filled by a massive sculpture depicting 72 different species coming together from both north and south. This Great Biotic Interchange took place when the American continents connected, with Panama providing access to new lands for numerous animals and birds. This continues to the present day, with millions of species either passing through on seasonal migrations, or just spreading into new territory (often as a result of human caused changes to their existing environments).

You’ll want to take some time here to read about the various animals depicted in the sculpture. I was extremely surprised to learn that the llama, an animal we often associate with South America, actually first originated in North America some 45 million years ago, only to cross through the Panama isthmus. Similarly, various horses originated in North America but were hunted to extinction by Native American tribes. It wasn’t until the Spanish conquistadors came to the New World with domesticated horses from Europe, that the horse was reintroduced across the American continents.

Human Path

Next, you’ll exit into an outdoor space. The Human Path exhibit is actually housed underneath the BioMuseo’s main atrium. The focus here is on the impact humans have had on Panama’s biodiversity across 150,000 years of history. This information is laid out on 16 columns, broken down across 4 main periods. If you start at the beginning of the timeline, you’ll learn how the first inhabitants of Panama lived off the land and eventually hunted large prehistoric animals such as mastodons to extinction. The development of agriculture by Pre-Hispanic groups many years later led to complex societies and communal structures being established. Forests were transformed for crop growth, though the significance of nature was recognised, with ceramics and other works being decorated by animal depictions.

From there, the story shifts to the impact of humans in Colonial times. The arrival of Europeans to the New World in 1501 significantly changed the relationship between humans and nature in the Americas. Changes to the way people lived occurred as new colonial settlements were established, while diseases and battles shaped both the human and natural spheres. Those changes continued to take place through to contemporary times, which is what the last couple of columns focus on, with events such as the opening of the Panama Canal, and the scientific discoveries and urban development of human life today.

Oceans Divided

Heading back inside into a second building, you’ll reach the BioMuseo’s aquarium. Panama’s formation also led to distinct aquatic ecosystems forming on either side of the isthmus, and that’s exactly what’s explored here, with two giant tanks depicting the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea side by side one another. There’s a similar concept at the Punta Culebra Nature Center’s aquarium up the road, but this is definitely superior as the tanks are much larger and filled with more corals, fish and other aquatic life. With Panama forming a physical barrier between the two water bodies, the two oceans couldn’t be more different.

• Want to read about Punta Culebra Nature Center? I’ve covered it HERE.

In the 290,000 litre Caribbean tank, you’ll see the colourful fish that live in its calm and warm waters. The Caribbean is the perfect water body for large reefs to form owing to its year round transparent waters. By contrast, the Pacific Ocean is huge, wide and deep (therefore its fitting that it has the larger tank as well, holding 410,00 litres of sea water). Its nutrient rich waters have led to a complex array of food webs for large schools of fish, some of which you can see in their tank. The species in the Pacific tank were actually collected further off the coast from Panama City as the waters near the museum are heavily polluted.

You’ll want to spend some time comparing the two oceanic displays in this hall (and you’ll get another view from above before leaving the museum), but you can also check out a few smaller displays such as those depicting the difference between living and dead corals.

Living Web

Up next, the Living Web goes big picture, looking at the interactions between microorganisms, insects, animals and plants, with the take home message being the importance of one species’ reliance on a myriad of others to survival. The actual exhibit consists of another set of giant sculptures, this one of the flora and fauna rich rainforest of Islo Barro Colorado, a small island in the middle of the Panama Canal. The various organisms are depicted in ways that represent the complex interactions they utilise to care for others, and there is also information on the role of humans in this great web of life.

An example of the significant relationships between species on display in this gallery can be seen through the fig tree and wasp example. An enlarged fig is split in half to show that the wasp uses it to lay its eggs and reproduce. In return, the wasp brings pollen to the fig, allowing it to continue to germinate. Neither species could survive without the other, and nature is full of relationships just like this.

Panama is the Museum

The final part of the BioMuseo’s permanent galleries is entitled ‘Panama is the Museum’. Its basically a summary that ties everything you’ve learnt about biodiversity and nature throughout your time in the museum. Further emphasis is placed on Panama’s natural uniqueness, and many of its natural and cultural wonders are shown through interactive touch screens that provide further information.

On my visit, there was a space set up for a temporary exhibit after this section. The Extinction travelling exhibit highlighted species that have already become extinct throughout history. There were fossils of creatures ranging from megalodons to dodos in this relatively simple display. It also brought everything full circle, as the final message of my tour of BioMuseo was the fact that an estimated 150 species go extinct each day, with more than 35,000 more in danger of extinction on current trends.

The BioMuseo Park

When you’re finished with the museum itself, its worth spending a bit of time wandering through the BioMuseo’s Park of Biodiversity. The views from the Amador Causeway are stunning enough, but this free outdoor space adds to that with a series of outdoor displays amongst nature. The range of educational exhibits among the beautiful gardens is quite varied, ranging from the Garden of Evolution‘s focus on the history of plant life to the Garden of Life, which focuses on crops and other vegetables. The centrepiece is the great fig tree, under which the interconnected web of life is explored in the Garden of Interdependence.

I didn’t spend a huge amount of time in the Park of Biodiversity, but while getting to my next destination, I strolled along the Promenade of the Canal. This meant that in addition to taking in the views of forested shores on the other side of the Bridge of the Americas, I also was able to learn about the volcanic mountains on the horizon and their role in the surrounding ecosystems. All in, its a clever way to attract curious passers by to learn more in the detailed exhibits inside the BioMuseo.

I was really impressed by the BioMuseo. Having just come from the Punta Culebra Nature Center nearby, I had actually considered skipping this museum, thinking that it would be more of the same content. While there was definitely some overlap, I’m very glad that I visited the BioMuseo. It actually blew me away compared to what I had been expecting in terms of its scope and interactivity. Definitely put the BioMuseo on your itinerary if you’re planning a trip to Panama City.

Have you been to the BioMuseo yet? Which part of the museum is most interesting to you?