Jurassic illumination: the 2024-2025 Festival of Light at the Jardin des Plantes

The Jardin des Plantes Lantern Festival will be held for the 6th time this winter (2024-2025). This luminous stroll, a great success in the run-up to the festive season, has become a must! After plunging us into the depths of the sea, taking us into the world of the dinosaurs, before leading us into the World of the Minuscule, this time the Jardin des Plantes invites us to explore the rich ecosystem of the jungle. From November 20, 2024 to January 19, 2025, we'll be at the Jardin des Plantes to discover an original and entertaining journey.

As you can imagine, this colorful nocturnal stroll will take us on a journey into the past. This immersion into the heart of the Jurassic period will take us from the depths of the ocean to swampy environments and verdant valleys... Let's get back to the Reptile Era!

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During the Jurassic period, between 201 and 145 million years ago, Pangaea, the immense supercontinent that encompassed almost all the world's landmasses, ceased to exist. The continents continued to fragment and drift apart.

This geographic separation favored the opening of sea lanes, allowing marine organisms to disperse across the globe. At the same time, pterosaurs began to dominate the skies, while the first birds appeared. Mammals and plants also diversified greatly.

The "Jurassic on the Way to Enlightenment" exhibition invites us to explore this fascinating period through an immersive journey featuring emblematic species. These include marine reptiles, life-size reconstructions of land and flying dinosaurs, and the first mammals, many of whose fossils are preserved in the Jardin des Plantes' Galerie de Paléontologie et d'Anatomie Comparée.

This fantastic epic will take us through five distinct Jurassic environments, revealing the diversity of flora and fauna at different periods. The adventure begins in the deep seas of the Lower Jurassic, populated by marine reptiles such as plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs. Next, the abysses of the Middle Jurassic reveal bioluminescent creatures around the black smokers. Rising to the surface, a tropical Upper Jurassic lagoon teems with marine life and flying dinosaurs. Exploration continues in a wooded valley where ferns and cycas thrive, before ending in an incipient Cretaceous swamp, where gigantic dinosaurs cohabit with small mammals.

(Re)discover this nocturnal stroll, which transforms into an atypical experience to be enjoyed with friends or family, to discover the monumental luminous structures installed in the paths and lawns of the Jardin des Plantes.