The Harvard Museum of Natural History

While the Harvard Museum of Natural History may have only been founded in 1998, don’t let that fool you: it’s actually the combination of three much older museums in Harvard.

The first, the Museum of Comparative Zoology, was founded in 1859 and has a collection consisting of approximately 21 million specimens, although naturally all of them are not on display. What is on display is pretty impressive, though: among the preserved specimens of thousands of birds, bugs, and beasts visitors can view whale skeletons, a mastodon fossil, an eight foot long turtle shell that is the largest found so far, a coelacanth (a species of fish thought to be extinct for 66 million years until a living coelacanth was caught in 1938), and a 42-foot long Kronosaurus skeleton. The latter is the most complete Kronosaurus skeleton ever discovered; the marine reptile lived in the Early Cretaceous period and its skull alone could reach nearly 10 feet in length.

The second museum is the Harvard Mineralogical Museum, which was also founded in 1859 and located in the same building as the Museum of Comparative Zoology. Its collection is the oldest in the country, dating back to 1784, and currently consists of 400,000 specimens. Even with relatively little understanding of geology, it’s hard not to be amazed by the beautiful and intricate rock formations on display. They highlight how strange and varied the processes are that form them, and make you wonder how people interpreted such formations before scientific study allowed for explanations of their origins.

The Harvard University Herbaria is slightly older than the other two, having been founded in 1842, and with over 10 million specimens, it’s one of the 10 largest in the world. The Botanical museum was created in 1848 and named The Museum of Vegetable Products. One of the most interesting collections is its paleobotany exhibit, which is located in a separate building. However, the Glass Flowers exhibit is on display in the Harvard Museum of Natural History, and it is stunning. Created by Leopold and Rudolf Blashka between 1887 and 1936, the one-of-a-kind collection of life-sized replicas of plants is virtually indistinguishable from the real plants, and the minute, delicate details are astonishing. Roughly 4,400 models of over 840 species were made, and it is easy to see why this display is one of the primary draws of the museum. There is also a display created by the Blashkas of glass sea creatures, which has fewer models but is of equally amazing quality.

We visited in the week between Christmas and New Year, and the museum was absolutely packed – apparently this is one of the busiest times for Boston’s museums. Neither my wife nor I expected the museum to be as big and comprehensive as it is, and there is much more than a visitor who wishes to also read attached displays can possibly take in in a day, especially with the inclusion of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, which is included in the ticket price and is connected to the Museum of Natural History. All in all, it would be hard to consider a trip to see Boston’s museums complete without a stop at the Harvard Museum of Natural History, and it would be equally difficult to visit without finding something that captivates or enchants you. The museum is open daily from 9am to 5pm although it is closed on some holidays; more information on planning your visit can be found here.