The Harvard Museum of Natural History

AMAZING!! Great for lovers of Natural History Museums, I came here after seeing Yale’s and both were spectacular. The glass flowers are seriously mind blowing and my parents couldn’t believe that they weren’t real even while standing in from of them! The taxidermy is a little repetitive at some points but an impressive display nonetheless. I also really enjoyed the exhibit about arthropods.

Harvard Museum of Natural History – 5/5 Stars Had a wonderful day visiting the Harvard Museum of Natural History with my son! There’s so much to see—we easily spent a few hours exploring the exhibits. From fossils and minerals to animals and interactive displays, the museum is both educational and fun. Great for families, and definitely a spot that keeps kids and adults engaged. Highly recommended for a relaxed and enriching outing!

This museum is absolutely mind blowing. The glass flower exhibit is what we came for. I thought that the plant replicas were real plants preserved in formaldehyde. I soon discovered that the plants were all made out of glass. Everything in the glass display cases were hand crafted glass replicas for the science school. Absolutely extraordinary. My favorite was the apple branch with anatomically correct blossoms in their full glory. Blaschka and his son also made a lot of replicas for the marine science department. The idea was that the creatures could not be preserved in suspended full anatomically correct permanence. The species saved in alcohol and other solutions would deteriorate and not remain vertebrate, so he replicated them quite beautifully and perfectly , with timeless result, out of glass. This is a "come back several times exhibit". It is only possible to barely comprehend the magnitude of splendor on the first visit. It can not be taken completely in without several equally astonishing visits. I also visited the geological wing of the museum (Earth and planetary sciences ) with it's mineral displays as my focus. I look forward to visiting again asap and writing more specifically about it.

A place well worth visiting. The highlight is the display of glass plants, they are simply outstanding. I really didn’t expect to be so overwhelmed by the accuracy, beauty and scientific detail shown by each one. It’s hard to believe that they are not freshly picked plants they look so real. The thin sections of anatomy bring botany to life. Please visit, you will not be disappointed.

A great place to visit if you're looking to escape the heat but really worthwhile even if that's not true. The collection of rocks is extensive and the collection of animals on display is large and a bit entertaining (not all taxidermists are created equal).

Glass Flower was the highlight and unbelievably beautiful. Rest of the sections were very nice as well. Can easily spend 2-3 hours here.

Absolutely loved this place. The minerals, the insects, the skeletons were amazingly displayed. The staff were very kind and the facility itself very clean. Going into this place with a curious mind, you will learn and experience so much.

Bought a ticket upon arrival, not a super big or busy but a really cool collection of things. Did some learning and appreciating natural wonders. Can definitely spend a while here with the diversity of the collection. The glasswork of plants and sea animals is especially amazing

My first time visiting here and I was impressed by the collections and exhibits! The staff members were very friendly. The exhibits are on the third floor. There is very limited paid street parking in front. I'd say try to get here before 9 AM on a weekend or holiday. On weekdays, especially when the school is in session, it's pretty much impossible to find any street parking. Otherwise, I'd suggest public transportation or finding a nearby parking garage.

Hide gem outside Harvard Square! Absolutely fantastic museum!!! There is so much to see here. Go for the glass flowers and ask questions to the attendant in the room for more info. It is such a one-of-a kind exhibit. Then make sure you spend enough time in the hall with all the animals and that room with the second floor with the whale hanging from the ceiling. You will be in awe of it!! You can walk up to the second floor to get a whale bone close-up! It is about a 10 minute walk from Harvard T Station, but worth it. On your way to the museum you can stroll through Harvard Yard and Memorial Hall.

I did it. I went to Harvard. Or at the very least I went to their museum of natural history, haha. We stopped by on our last day in Boston, and well, this museum was bigger than I thought it'd be. Consequently given the day and time, we had to pick our poison, as we could not see it all. We went mainly to see the glass flowers, and well, that's exactly what we did. Have to say I am impressed because none of these look like they're made from glass. What an amazing collection! Shame I couldn't spend more time there. Definitely have to go back!

Attended the ArtThursdays event here this past week, which is hosted by Harvard on the last Thursday of every month. It's free to the public and parking is validated. It was open from 5-9 and we got to explore practically all of the museum. The only thing we didn't get to see was the Peabody Museum as this was closed. During this event, they also had a chocolate tasting presentation, opportunities to sketch, cash bars, tables with pages to color, and even a raffle. Having never been here before, I didn't know what I was walking into. But I was pleasantly surprised by all the exhibits. I especially enjoyed the Great Mammal Hall, the Thoreau exhibit, and the room with all neat rocks/minerals. I also liked the cyanotype exhibit in the Thoreau room. I also heard many people talking about the famous glass flowers exhibit, and how it couldn't be missed kissed. It was definitely cool to learn that these models are studied now. There were many volunteers throughout the museum who were keen to answer any questions and offer insight about things in the museum which was nice. A couple of downsides to this museum. Being an old building, there was no elevator from the main door. We had to walk up 3 flights of stairs which was inconvenient as someone in my party has a bad knee. The guy did inform us of an elevator if we went back outside and went around the building, but that seemed even more of an inconvenience to be honest. Also getting to and from the museum was a little confusing. They offered free parking in a garage which should be about a 5 minute walk away. Having got lost, it took us almost 30 minutes to get to the museum. They didn't have any special event signs so you were kind of on your own if you'd never been there before. Going back to the garage was confusing too, and we actually ended up finding other people who were also lost. Definitely recommend using walking directions via google maps. Other than those things, I would definitely love to come back to this museum, especially since I am now more comfortable with the location of the building. There is definitely a lot of information to be absorbed here so take your time! Overall good experience and really enjoyed my night at the museum.

Brief Summary: - Museum exhibit starts on the third floor - Mineral section was our favorite, pretty display setup - Glass flower - air is extremely dusty, requires a mask to enter if allergic to dust - Animal taxidermy - also dusty air and some gamey odor - There is a clothes rack near the ticket purchasing area It was a rainy day in Boston, so what we headed to one of the places we marked. There were different types of museums, but we were interested in the natural history museum. A relative of mine was particularly interested in the minerals and rocks displayed. When searching up online I was curious on the "glass flower" exhibit; this was mentioned a couple of times on the museum's search results. The museum ticket purchasing was on the first floor, but the main exhibit starts on the third floor (nothing much except for two subjects on the second floor). On the same first floor, there was a corner where there is a coat rack. Since it was raining, there were a dozen of hung coats and umbrellas lying about on the floor. Some also left a baby cart. There is also a shelf full of locks, but it didn't seem to be used. There was no staff standing around here, but seeing there wasn't any and it was accessible for any guests, it felt safe to leave them. We grabbed a map and walked up the flight of stairs to the third floor. The museum is split into different sections, and the animals take most of the space. The area we were interested, were near the same part of the building, so we started off there. The mineral and rock section is an admirable place to stare at. I enjoyed the different minerals, some in their natural form and others that are carved into gemstones. Further into the mineral and gemstone exhibit, there were the climate change section, meals over the years, and the Mayan and Aztec like archaeology. Once we viewed those, we went into the next well-known exhibit: the glass flowers. This exhibit is located near the gift shop and has the most warning messages at the entrance. It even included a restriction of baby strollers. Upon entering, the room is quiet and the lights are dim. The glass display cases also have warning signs that say to not touch the display cases either because the objects inside are fragile. It took some consideration on why on such protection and security on these glass flowers, but it's because each of the flowers -- while they look like plastic -- they are actually made by glass. VERY fascinating. It also makes sense because in that time, plastic was not a common material to use (not sure if that's true but that was my assumption). I was impressed that they looked real but how this was made in glass. It even replicated the wilted flowers and leaves that would be omitted when designing objects. The only problem was that this room smelled like the air hadn't been cleaned in decades, or it contained even the air when these glass flowers were first created. This was a room my relative, who is allergic to dust, could not enter because they felt a sneeze coming. Even with a mask, they left within 30 seconds of viewing; they could not see past 2 display cases. I was able to view the exhibit, but since it was pretty dusty, I wore a mask. The other areas of the exhibit were slightly on that spectrum as well - dusty. For the remainder of our viewing, we kept the mask on and quickly walked past the animal taxidermy rooms. Oddly, the room with the marine life creatures had a similar dusty air like the glass flowers. Regardless of the dusty complaints, it was a fun experience to look through the displays, and the highlight for us were the minerals room.

The museum of natural history is well worth a visit just for the glass flowers. They are incredibly lifelike and it's so unbelievable that they're actually glass. The rock room is also very cool to visit. It's a smaller museum but they have a good fossil collection and a large room of stuffed animals models. You also get access to the Peabody archeology museum which is attached.

I stop by this museum every time I am in Cambridge. There are so many exhibits to explore! The natural history museum is good for all ages- there are many colourful and interesting exhibits for kids. There is also seating throughout the museum for those who would like to relax for a moment and take in the sights. Highly recommended!

This place is a great place to go with friends or family. My friend got the museum pass from Boston so we were able to get in for free. We took the T in. The exhibits themselves are so diverse and there are so many! It took us a few hours to go through them and we didn't even look at all of them! One of my favorite exhibits were the glass flowers. They are so exquisite and look so realistic, I have a hard time believing they're glass! They also had some beautiful minerals in the Earth Science exhibit. And I liked looking at the insects and sea creatures in the glass exhibit. They had an exhibit of New England animals which I enjoyed looking at too.

Harvard Natural History Museum August 12, 2024 Top 32 Photos I took at the Harvard Natural History Museum 1. I took a photo of my receipt showing as a teacher in Massachusetts I got to go for FREE! Thanks Harvard! 2. Greater Short-nosed Fruit nose bat 3. Big brown bat 4. See monster art called "Giant Squid Attack" from a French artist Victor Nehlig of a squid attacking sailors. 5. 2 newspaper articles about giant sea-monsters 6. The huge beautiful full color weird under the sea creatures images. 7. Fossilized fish 8. The huge skeleton of an underwater dinosaur with my wife in the foreground to show HOW big it is. 9. Screaming Hairy Armadillo 10. Burmese eared Night Jar 11. Chestnut-headed babbler 12. a huge sea star 13. Triplewart Seadevil, preserved in a jar. 14. Giant Tube Worm, preserved in a jar. 15. Full size human skeleton next to my young son. 16. Black Mastiff Bat and Big Brown Bat. 17. Bush Hyrax 18. Walrus skull head on. 19. Wolverine 20. Black rat, Shaw's Jird, Mitchell's Hopping Mouse, Wood Mouse, Brown Rat, Barbary Striped Grass Mouse. 21. Tasmanian Devil 22. Duck Billed Platypus and full skeleton of the same. 23. Various hummingbirds 24. Great Grey Owl. 25. More various birds I didn't get the names 26. amazing colored Paradise Tanager 27. Moose horns 28. Beetles arranged in a circle. see attached photo. 29. Amazing collection of plants and flowers 30. Massive Gypsum which are crystals found in Limestone caves in Mexico. 31. Igneous Rocks, Sedimentary Rocks, Metamorphic Rocks 32. The beautiful photo collection of frogs in the lobby. You must go here if you like animals. You must go here even if you don't like animals. You must go hear for the fish, the bugs, the stuff preserved in a jar. So many things to look at, marvel at and enjoy. If you are a teacher you have NO excuse to NOT go!

What a fabulous museum! Being a gardener and plant geek I couldn't get enough of the glass flowers exhibit. Made by Leopoldo & Rudolf Blaschka between 1886-1936 for Harvard botany students to study, the glass flowers look REAL! They're amazing! There was a lot of info and we got to hear docent David tell us all about them. The museum also has a wonderful rocks and gemstone exhibit, taxidermy animals of all kinds, skeletons, plus more art. We LOVED it! AND they have a very good gift shop where I bought a book on the glass flowers and a t-shirt. Yay! Thanks Harvard for adding to our vacation to Boston!

The glass flowers exhibit was fascinating. It took us a while to completely understand the concept, that practically everything on display was made of glass (what wacky ideas they had in the 1800s!!) The rest of the museum was standard. My daughter has become a devotee of natural history museums, so I've spent quite some time looking at fossils and rocks. (Note: This museum does not have a café and there is little in the immediate vicinity.)

So much history in one building. There was even a squirrel to welcome me at the door The only section I felt was irrelevant was the Climate Change section. Skipped right past all that.

Cheap, but not free site. Lots of kids (kinda loud), bathrooms are not the easiest to find. Large floor plan with a variety of sites, from dinosaurs, all types of dead animals, a Native American and a Mayan exhibit, plus a whole section to view geodes! Good place to learn a lot of history and environmental knowledge preserved. There's even a mastodon!

The Harvard Museum of Natural History is able to present a decent variety of items in a relatively small space. This space is well known for the glass flowers. They have a decent section on fossils, dinosaurs, geodes, minerals and rocks, mammals, wildlife and birds from around the world and beetles. The $15 entrance fee will also get you into the Peabody Museum (Native American artifacts) and the two other museums they have on campus. The museum offers discounts for locals, faculty, students and library patrons. There were a lot of families with young kids. Many of the exhibits are easy to see up close so it was great for kids to access. When walking by an exhibit of a lion cub a family started to sing a song from the Lion King, which was kind of cute. I would guess the museum takes approximately 1 to 2 hours to see everything. It was fairly easy to find and less than a 10 minute walk from Harvard Square and the T stop. There is no food offered on site but there is a small gift shop.

This is a great museum! We were in the city for the morning and decided to come here since it would be indoors and cool. We found affordable street parking a few blocks away and walked here. It was $15 for adults, free for members of the Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA). Great deal as this gets you access to four Harvard museums in the area. This one was very cool, lots of animals, gemstones, bugs, etc. So much to see and I was amazed by the details and careful taxidermy. I thought I was finished with the zoology exhibits until I entered the next room to find more. Very lucky to be able to see some of these animals that I would probably never see in real life. Although nothing personally spoke to me at the gift shop, there were plenty of gifts and neat items for kids. This is a wonderful museum to visit and is appropriate for all ages.

Had a lovely Sunday morning at the museum! An awesome collection of pieces / exhibits - our favorites were the glass flower exhibit (unsurprisingly!) and the minerals/rocks exhibits! Harvard ID holders gain free admission for themselves and a guest, while MA residents also get free admission Weds afternoons and Sunday mornings!

This place is insane in a great way. Definitely worth admission price of $15. Glass Flowers were amazing and the history of the men were pretty fascinating. One of my favorite stops on our Boston trip.

Amazing glass flowers -gems and crystals are bueatiful -cultural exhibits went beyond just things to look at quietly and well distributed

Loved this museum! It was really super busy on a Sunday. But I get why. There is such a wealth of information here. I loved the glass flowers, the animal displays especially the whales, and the minerals and rocks. Some of the exhibits are a bit outdated but I think it kind of lends it character. Very cool place.

This was a great museum! It covers paleontology, sea life, bacteria/microbes, dinosaurs, mammals, fish. They have a whole section of fossils covering very rare animals! Some of which don't even have specific names and we don't know what they looked like--we just have their bones! Isn't that intriguing and wonderful! There is one they just call Morphus--some type of hoofed animal. There is also a display of animals that existed in South America when it still functioned like an island--a giant sloth, a giant armadillo ancestor, another creature I never imagined existed. Terrifying, freaky, and cool! They also have an amazing, beautiful two-tiered room that contains whale skeletons and taxidermy mammal specimens. Fascinating, beautiful--it filled me with awe to see the giant wales and all the species collected in Harvard's collection. Great photo ops too! Specimens are from all around the world. This museum also has an expansive collection of birds. Another cool thing is their glass sea-life and glass flower collections. Decades ago, people used to make specimens (such as plants, flowers, sea animals) out of glass to serve as educational models. These are so amazingly detailed and lifelike and wonderful to see. They also have a great rock/mineral exhibit! So much to see here! And the staff was super nice too. Please note timed reservations are in effect. 15 dollars gets you all this AND the Peabody museum that's connected. Fantastic deal.

I had a free day when I was in Boston for work. There are a bunch of museums in the area but this one looked to be my cup of tea. It was $15 for entry. I thought that was a great price. The museum wasn't huge, but it was big enough to hold my interest for quite a few hours without being overwhelming and huge.There was lots to see. I especially loved the exhibit about the glass flowers. They were so delicate that it was hard to believe that they were made out of glass. I also loved all of the taxidermy animals. They were displayed so beautifully and it was wonderful to see them all close-up. My most favorite things were the bugs and butterflies displays along with the taxidermy birds from all over the world. What I was really stoked about was the fact that I got to hold a real megalodon shark tooth, a 150 million year old fossilized dinosaur egg and fossilized dinosaur poop. To be able to actually touch these items with my hands, instead of them, being behind in closed glass was very amazing to me. It was like holding a piece of history and I really appreciated it. The museum wasn't especially busy and it was really nice to take my time and peruse all of the exhibits. I saw lots of families with small children who are very engaged and happy to be there. I really recommend exploring this museum. If you have some time it's great to come alone or with your kids. The gift shop is rather nice too.

Very cool museum! So much to see, do and learn here. $15 admission is a steal. We spent 3-4 hours touring through the many exhibits. Fascinating stuff. I loved the gorgeous rocks and gemstones. Learned about so many animals and fish. I never knew there were so many different varieties of the same animal, like hummingbirds and beetles. Was intrigued by seeing animals I had never even heard of! Go to this museum, and bring the kids. Completely worth the price of admission.

This place is so cool. One of the best places I visited in Boston actually. Do not underestimate it because it's a museum in a school. Rocks: They have a really cool collection of rocks including a meteor the size of a torso you can touch! Glass plants: They all kinda look similar but the amount of glass work that has been made and the insane amount of artistry and craft that must have gone into making them is insane. Animals: They have a lot of taxidermy animals. They are pretty cool. They habe tigers, giraffes, cats and basically all sorts of things. It would put most museums to shame. They have preserved real specimen and also giant skeletons. I would come and visit this museum again. I didn't have enough time the first time to see everything.

best nature museum around, natural history abound rocks flowers fish birds and mammals, they even got camels

Amazing, world class museum of natural history. Old style museum with wooden cabinets. Great geology collection. Fantastic explanation and display of meteorites. Glass flowers are worth the trip all by themselves. The location of this museum makes it perfect for every reason. Smack dab in the middle of the Harvard campus.

What a perfect way to spend a few hours! Great museum, very covid friendly and clean. I liked that you need a vaccine card or negative PCR covid test. Reservation required , Plenty of hand sanitizing stations and masks are required. Felt super safe with my little one. Took us about 2 hours to go through. We didn't stop and read everything either. Lots of fossils, and stuffed animals. Something for everyone ... architecture, fossils, flowers, art, science , and so much more. Great museum right in havard! They have clip boards, paper, and pencils for kids to draw what they see... super cute idea. Metered Parking was easy to find on the street too!

Super pretty and I loved the taxidermy! I would recommend seeing the geology section too, it was fascinating. The staff was also really nice :)

Wow, they have made some incredible changes. I was laste here 12 years ago and was NOT at all impressed. The template has changed thought some exhibits remained the same. It feels much more spaced out and roomy instead of stuffy and crowded like last time. Luckily for me, I had a Harvard ID so I brought myself and guest in for free! However, admission is only 15 bucks for adults and it is well worth it. Prepare to spend about 2 hours, 3 if you are strolling and reading. It also connects to the Peabody architectural museum so it is well worth it! I wasn't able to go to the other one so I'll have to come back!

Hidden gem. Kids loved it. A ton to look and see. Spent plenty of time there and would go back.

My visit was just okay. First off, the reservation/pricing advertisement was a little misleading. When you book a reservation online, it says $0, leading me to think it was free, but in reality, it was $15 upon arrival. The museum's exhibits and infrastructure are very old. I hope that one day they're able to spruce it up. Exhibits were okay - mostly preserved animals. There were a lot of them so it was kind of neat to see wildlife representation from all over the world! Animal lovers might enjoy this place more than me!

There are lots of cool things here. My favorite exhibit is the one with the glass flowers and fruits. It is hard to believe they are glass!

Lions, Tigers & Bears! And so much more! Very unusual for a university to have a museum, but with all the stuff they've collected over the years, it makes sense for Harvard to open one on campus. The public areas are on the third floor of the Zoology and Bio-Sciences building and parts of the fourth floor that also includes the Peabody Museum of Archeology and Ethnology, the Museum of Comparative Zoology and the Geological Museum. All this for one price! We got the Go-Boston! card with a couple of other museum tickets and got 20% off all of them! When we arrived, a bunch of school groups had arrived as well, so it was chaos with bunches of middle schoolers underfoot everywhere. We started in the Gems and Minerals room filled with meteorites, precious stones, elements & metals. The giant gold nugget was just a replica though and the smallest diamond was embedded in a rock. There were a few giant amethyst geodes though that were beautifully purple. Moving onto the Peabody Museum, many of the artifacts spanned the history of mankind with exhibits of primitive Mayan, Aztec, Incan, Sumerian, Babylonian cultures. In the Zoology wing, most of the displays are static starting with skeletons of ancient dinosaurs and mammals. Most are molds and replicas because the originals would be too delicate for display. There are some whole animals preserved in formaldehyde plus a few live ones such as scorpions and tarantulas on display. The taxidermy collections of more modern animals are quite extensive with birds the size of hummingbirds up to the 5ft rhea, as well as land mammals from the shrew to the giraffe. Above the terrestrial animals are hung 3 large skeletons of whales (Sperm, Fin & Right) that are impressive creatures to see and even better if you can see them for real on a whale watching voyage. It feels like I was absorbing knowledge as soon as I set foot on Harvard's campus and the museum is a great way to spend a half to a whole day. Dabbling in archeology, paleontology, ethnology, zoology, biology and geology is hungry business, so we're off to hunter/gather some lunch in Harvard Square.

We wanted to take our 5 year old on a cultural excursion on a recent trip to Boston.. all of the other options (Children's Museum and Museum of Science) were all really overpriced.. seems to be the norm in Boston.. NYC has many low priced museum options.. anyways, that was the reason for the choice on top of the wonderful Yelp reviews. We were not disappointed. First of all, I loved to be on the campus of Harvard.. so much history and prestige. I'd like to think my baby girl will have this college as an option in about 12 years. :-) Parking is a total headache, so beware.. but we found on the street parking that is only good for 2 hours.. but, dirt cheap at under $3. This place isn't as big as we'd expected, but wow... I believe they have every living species that has ever lived on God's green earth!! From dinosaurs to the teensiest of bugs.. they are all found under one roof. I find that stuff fascinating, so I was in my glory.. my LO loved this part as well!! The other side is filled with history and culture.. artifacts.. a little boring for a 5 year old, but right up an almost middle agers alley! I wish I could have spent more time really taking my time, but the meter was a runnin.

This is a great little natural history museum, especially for a few hours with the kids. In addition to all of the stuffed animals (as in taxidermy, not Snuffles) and the dinosaur bones and the glass flowers (still incredible that someone actually made these really intricate models), our kids really enjoyed the gems and minerals display. It's an entire room full of interesting rocks and crystals, which was perfect because our 6-year-old is currently obsessed with amethysts. They enjoyed looking at all the display cases (they were just big enough to look into them) and would call us over to show us cool things that they found. I was really impressed by the larger displays along the walls. Some of the minerals were really colorful and shaped in bizarre ways. The museum feels bigger than it actually is thanks to having lots of rooms. Don't miss going upstairs in the back room to check out the whale skeletons up close.

A great great way to spend your time in this museum. I paid $12 to get in. I wished I could spent more time here. I just had 1.5 hours to spend here before the museum closed. I could not even venture the gift shop because I got hushed away from the museum's security. It is time to close, he said. I could not attached all my pictures because I had so many! I love everything the museum has to offer. I hope I can come back again someday and spend more time in this museum.

This museum is so cool that even people who claim they don't like museums will love this place. All creatures great and small are displayed in taxidermy form. Gorillas to gophers. Anacondas to aphids. Bison to bongos. Roosters to rhinos. Hippos to hyrax. Room after room of literally thousands and thousands of insects and amphibians and mammals and reptiles and birds... even near-extinct specimens are here such as the java rhino. Also of note, thousands of magnificent mineral specimens both great and small are displayed with many so massive and colorful and complex in textures that they appear to be works of sculptural art. Fantastic fossils of dinosaurs and smilodons and more... Much more cool stuff is here and I urge all YELPers to attend this museum for a day of utter fascination. I can assure you that you'll have a blast and you will urge friend and foe alike to peep out this museum. No need to say more. Go ASAP. It's mental. Go Harvard!

My erudite friend and I were in the area, looking at the Harvard things, and we saw there was this Harvard Museum, so we decided to check it out, not knowing exactly what sights would be contained within. So we were both pretty pleasantly surprised when we found out this museum housed such MASSIVE collections of interesting minerals and raw ores of compounds, intricate glass flower models, and finally models of animals, among some other smaller exhibits. The sheer density of all the exhibits was a bit overwhelming, as there were probably easily thousands of unique rock and geologic samples in just the room for minerals. It's like when you're overloaded with information and sights that you begin to forget everything you saw because there was just way too much to take in. The glass flowers were astounding. I was surprised that neither my friend or I had ever heard of these models before, and we both kept on commenting to each other how even after being show that the models were indeed made of glass, it was difficult to comprehend how that was possible just by visual exam. Again there was a little too much sensory overload in this exhibit but a couple models were particularly astounding. It's difficult to explain through words and you just have to go check it out for yourself! I would imagine this exhibit would be a glass blower's or botanist's fantasy. This museum was so dense that I think if you truly wanted to get more than a fleeting impression out of it, you'd have to have multiple visits and closer inspections of singular exhibits per visit. There's just WAY too much stuff to be enjoyed, which is obviously a good problem to have in a museum. Definitely check this place out if you're nearby. I think the most interesting exhibit were the glass flower models if you only had to pick one to see!

This is my favorite place to send and bring out of town visitors to, especially if they have kids. Every time, they leave saying, "Wow, that wasn't what I expected at all! That was so much fun!" It's the perfect kind of museum - small enough to go through in a day, exhibits that are interesting for the adults but not boring for kids, and a very reasonable admission price. For such a modestly sized museum, most of the exhibits are larger than life. We have spent hours just wandering all the taxidermied animals and gemstone collection in amazement, and my kids have always loved the fossil and dinosaur collection. There's a giant prehistoric sloth, for crying out loud! Lots to see for all ages. One caveat - Parking is not on site here. During the weekdays you MAY find two-hour street parking in adjacent streets, but a lot of it is resident and college parking only. There are several garages in the area, not at all a long walk away, but they aren't directly at the museum, so plan accordingly.

Blaschka's extensive glass flowers collection is here! They are very realistic glass botanical models, and botanists once traveled from all over the world to study here. I was so excited to have this opportunity to visit museum during my short stay in Boston. Glass flowers were amazingly detailed. Check out some of the pictures I took. Knowing I was coming here, I chose my lens solely for these glass flowers. They also have thousands of rare minerals. The company I work for use some of them for during our production process. To be able to see such a large sample of minerals was very interesting. I've seen them before but never this large sample. I was amazed how they were able to collect this large sample of this many minerals but then I realized I was at the Harvard. Of course..... no one else can collect this many at this large scale. I spent most of the time reading description of each mineral. I also saw large gypsum. I learned about gypsum during my visit to the White Sands in New Mexico and didn't know how the mineral forms. Honeybees in Action display was interesting. They actually have live bees in display behind the glass and be able to observe how they make honey. Sea creatures in glass, great mannmal, animals from all over the world.... Those are a few examples of their exhibits. 3 hours of my stay wasn't long enough at all. They are also connected to Peabody museum (display of native american, weapons from around the world,...) one admission takes care of both museums. I only wish I had more time. Sure, I've been to the Smithsonian in DC, as well as Natural History Museum in London. They were always too crowded. This museum is much smaller scale but I enjoyed here more. Highly recommend!

I LOVE natural history museums! I really enjoy seeing dinosaur bones and animals up close -- it makes me feel like an adventurous archaeologist. I was visiting Boston for the first time and knew I wanted to explore the Cambridge side of the river. On a Saturday afternoon I wandered around Harvard campus and it brought back some nostalgic memories of my college days at UC Berkeley. It was a bit rainy on my visit so I wanted to have a backup indoor plan and the Harvard Museum of Natural History seemed like a great idea! It wasn't too busy on a Saturday afternoon and my boyfriend & I only had to wait in a short line to purchase our tickets. I was really happy at its reasonable price! I was so used to expecting $20+ for other museums in the area. There's a free coat check right behind the ticket tables. My favorite exhibits: *ALL THE ANIMALS! Like rooms full of birds from all over the world, wild animals, extinct animals, giant bones. I think the exhibits were extremely detailed and educational. *BEE CORNER. Bees are my favorite insect and I always love learning more about how honey is made and how bees work together as a little society to survive. *MINERAL ROOM: Everything was so shiny! This was a visually pleasing room to visit, especially seeing the giant geode cut-outs on display. If you need an indoor activity to kill a couple of hours on Harvard's campus, come visit the Harvard Natural History Museum! Educational and entertaining for both adults and kids.

Excellent museum. 1) This museum has one of the best collection of fossils. 2) I like the fact it has a very cozy feeling to it. It is not too big or small. 3) However, unlike other university museums, which are free, such as Yale, the price here is somewhat steep.

Wow - this museum located on Harvard's campus is like a mini Smithsonian with a little bit of everything! You can easily spend 2-3 hours in here and still not see everything. In many ways, I found this museum to be somewhat better than the MIT Tech museum in terms of "Wow" factor. My favorite exhibits were: 1. The rocks and minerals section. Sounds boring but this exhibit is the first one you'll see and it has a staggering array of minerals from all over the world of various shapes, size, and colors. They organize by chemical formula. My favorite was halite (aka NaCl or salt) - despite having the same chemical formula you can get vast differences in appearance. 2. Kronosaurus skeleton - Man that thing is huge! If there was a scary dinosaur like a T-Rex that can roam underwater, it'll probably be this guy! It can probably eat sharks for breakfast. 3. The various animal exhibits (taxidermy) are fun, since you get a sense of scale on how large each animal is. You'll have to look up to the ceiling for whale bones. Definitely recommend visiting this museum!

They are requiring proof of negative covid results or vaccination card in order to enter.. nice museum interesting stuff.

It's quite an interesting museum. My boyfriend and I spent a fun afternoon here and actually surprisingly really enjoyed the room with all the different rocks.

Cozy atmosphere Arresting perspective Who do you trust more to collect this? I see this museum in three parts - anthropology, earth sciences/geology, and biology. The geology section I'll keep short, but is not to be missed - a virtual Mother Nature's jewelry store, with chemical compound identification for good measure. The anthropology section tries to cover a very wide swath of people and periods with its scope, limiting some of the impact that any one exhibit can have. The Lakota segment was intriguing, the Dios de Los Muertos coverage was cursory (though intriguing), and the arms/armor (always a history crowd-pleaser) was a brief dalliance, seemingly, but filled with absolutely fascinating elements. Taken altogether, it felt like a mixed (though largely satisfying) bag. I think the star here was the wildlife. You can nearly see your biology textbook come to life as you walk the exhibits here - not in a living, breathing sort of way a zoo might, of course - but in a visceral way that helps you come to grips with the fact that, before it was ever written about and illustrated in your text, someone had to go out into the wild, study, photograph, classify, name, and meticulously catalog that wonder, and a great many who accepted that undertaking were associated with this august institution. There's some gravitas just in that realization. Beyond that, however, is the true wonder in the vastness of the collection. Plenty is as documented and perfunctory as you'd expect. However, in some places, the explanations cease and it's simply display cases full of opportunity to gaze into the glassy eyes of our fellow natural inhabitants. It feels a little less "museum" than "artifactory" throughout these several segments. Somehow, there's refreshing revelation in that quiet reflection, too. In fact, it was my favorite part. Nice touch with a handful of old, weathered Harvard class chairs here and there, as if you were merely ambling through your own underclass laboratory. Recommended for a visit.

What a cool museum and much larger than I expected. There is a ton of stuff in here--fossils, taxidermy animals, to include birds, reptiles, mammals, insects, and sea/ocean life, a geology section with all kinds of different (and sparkly) rocks, and a separate Peabody Museum, which goes into historic mankind. You can spend hours in here if you wanted to look at everything! A fun place for kids with all the life-size animals and a wonder for adults. There is an emphasis on noting endangered/extinct animals, as well as what climate change is doing to the world. Not sure about parking nearby. It's easiest to either take a bus or the redline to Harvard Square. There's also a ton of excellent eateries nearby!

Visit the glass flowers exhibit! Actually, visit all the exhibits! The Harvard Museum of Natural History is a comprehensive science center. Plan on spending nearly a day there to get the full experience. It's like visiting the Boston Museum of Science! They had a pretty cool dinosaur exhibit as well as featured many animals from every part of the world. There were sea creatures, bugs, lizards, and mammals. When you walk through the different "worlds," you can get a piece of what under the sea to Africa looks like. There is a student discount for this museum - not just for Harvard students!

The Harvard campus contains a pearl hidden away in its recesses. I got an Indiana Jones feeling when I saw professors' offices tucked away upstairs behind a closed door in the whale bones room of this museum. I imagined tweed, green bankers lamps and rare artifacts hidden inside the nooks of their offices in this wonderful space. The reality is probably far more mundane, but from the intimate beauty within this place who knows! There's a definite 19th century feel here with the vast collections of dead animals. They gloriously overwhelm with their numbers - apes, orangoutangs, flocks of hummingbirds, different types of tigers and big cats crouched together side by side. Dinosaurs awe from their size and your one on one encounters with them - there were relatively few fellow visitors in some of the areas on our weekday visit. My imagination was free to run wild. Beautiful miniature specimens of intricate deep sea creatures - squid and the like, as well as the aforementioned giant whale specimens hanging from the ceiling and visible from the 2nd floor balcony displayed the range of the collection. Extremely enjoyable. Add to this the outstanding mineral collections, the glass flowers, and a small display of weapons, armor and shields. There is a treasure around every corner. Another reviewer mentioned that the museum pales when compared to the NYC Museum of Natural History, so keep that in mind - I've never been there. Still, this museum awakened my childhood curiosity as well as my 16 year old son's more than any other museum in a long while.

This is my favorite museum in MA! I've been here countless times (grew up here). I still love coming! Their insect collections are amazing! I usually spend all my time in the great mammal hall and upstairs by the whale skeletons. It never gets old. This is a great place to bring ANYONE. I've brought friends,dates, even people I don't like that much. :P Also they sell cricket snacks in the gift shop!