Harvard Museum of Natural History

The Harvard Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum on the grounds of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It displays a sampling of specimens drawn from the collections of the University's three natural history research museums:

The museum is physically connected to the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology and one admission grants visitors access to both museums. In December 2012, Harvard announced a new consortium, the Harvard Museums of Science and Culture, whose members are the Harvard Museum of Natural History, the Semitic Museum, the Peabody Museum, and the Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments.

The Harvard Museum of Natural History was created in 1998 as the “public face” of three research museums — the Museum of Comparative Zoology, the Harvard Mineralogical and Geological Museum, and the Harvard University Herbaria. Its exhibitions draw on Harvard University’s natural history collections; Harvard’s research faculty provides expertise; and programs for members and the general public provide an exchange of information and ideas. With more than 210,000 visitors in 2013, the Harvard Museum of Natural History is the University’s most-visited museum. The Harvard Museum of Natural History is one of four public museums which are part of a new consortium created in 2012, the Harvard Museums of Science & Culture.

In the Museum’s permanent galleries, visitors encounter the diversity of life on earth, from dinosaurs to fossil invertebrates and reptiles, to large mammals, birds and fish, and the only mounted Kronosaurus. The mineralogical galleries present a systematic display of meteorites, minerals and gemstones. The galleries also house the historic Ware Collection of Blaschka Glass Models of Plants, popularly known as the Glass Flowers and a new exhibition, Sea Creatures in Glass, displaying some of the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology's collection of the Blaschka models of marine invertebrates. In addition, a series of changing exhibitions bring focus to new research at the University. Current exhibitions include Thoreau's Maine Woods: A Journey in Photographs with Scot Miller (through February 2015),Mollusks: Shelled Masters of the Marine Realm, and New England Forests in the Zofnass Family Gallery.

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