An exhibition of 151 animal specimens and artifacts opens today at the Shanghai History Museum.

Most of the objects were collected by the museum of the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society in the 19th and 20th centuries.

The museum opened in 1874 on Huqiu Road in Huangpu District. It shut down in 1952, and much of its collection was shipped overseas. The objects which remained went to the Shanghai Cultural Administration.

Highlights of the current show include some of the country’s first leopard and giant panda specimens.

“We carefully chose artifacts which can represent the traits of the RAS,” according to Huang Ji, executive planner of the exhibition.

The Shanghai Museum, Shanghai Science and Technology Museum and Shanghai History Museum all contributed specimens to the exhibition, which is the first joint show organized by the three institutions.

The Shanghai Museum provided 44 artifacts for the exhibition, five of which came from the RAS collection. “It was not easy to find and determine their origins,” said Yang Zhigang, a curator at the Museum. “Some of the original tags were on the artifacts, but others were hard to trace.”

The exhibition will run until October 21.