Unspecified/General

On the central Cambridge campus of Harvard University just north of Harvard Yard, the Harvard Museum of Natural History (often referred to as the Harvard Natural History Museum) is the public-facing museum of Harvard University's three principal natural-history research collections. The museum occupies the third and fourth floors of the dramatic 1902 Romanesque Revival Museum Building at 26 Oxford Street, with the museum's permanent galleries drawing on the combined collections of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, the Mineralogical and Geological Museum and the Harvard University Herbaria. The combined three research collections are among the oldest and most significant in the United States. The Museum of Comparative Zoology was founded in 1859 by the celebrated Swiss-American naturalist Louis Agassiz, then a Harvard professor and one of the most influential scientific figures of the nineteenth century. The Mineralogical and Geological Museum dates to 1784. The Harvard University Herbaria, the largest university-owned herbarium in the world, contains some 5 million catalogued plant specimens. The museum's standout permanent exhibition is the celebrated Glass Flowers, a meticulously detailed collection of more than 4,300 life-size glass models of flowering plants created between 1887 and 1936 by the celebrated German father-and-son glass artists Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka. The Blaschkas were commissioned by Harvard botany professor George Lincoln Goodale to create scientifically accurate three-dimensional models of plants that could be displayed year-round (unlike pressed plant specimens, which lose colour and three-dimensional form). The resulting collection represents one of the most extraordinary works of scientific glasswork ever produced. Other standout permanent exhibits include the dinosaur gallery (featuring the celebrated 42-foot Kronosaurus marine reptile skeleton, one of the largest mounted marine reptile skeletons in any American museum), the Hall of African Mammals (one of the oldest dedicated African mammal halls in the United States), the mineralogy gallery (with one of the most extensive collections of meteorites in the United States) and the Birds of the World gallery (featuring more than 660 mounted specimens including several extinct species). A celebrated marine-life gallery features the suspended 42-foot fin whale skeleton, one of the largest cetacean skeletons on permanent public display in the eastern United States.

Type: Tourist Attraction

Address: 26 Oxford Street, Boston, MA, United States

Telephone: 617-495-3045

Website: hmnh.harvard.edu

Opening Date: 01/01/1998