One of the five sites included in the CityPass ticket I picked up on Sunday was for admission to the Harvard Museum of Natural History. The museum was started in 1998 – relatively new – and is located near the Memorial Hall.
Work ended slightly earlier on Monday afternoon, so I raced to the museum trying to get there before its closing time at 5 PM. Got a little lost with the side roads and that the Eyewitness Travel Guide map was somewhat abstracted and missing a bit of detail, and I ended up backtracking a good bit. Also got sidetracked by the Memorial Hall with a glorious setting sun (see the earlier post).
By the time I got to and found the museum, it was just about 35 minutes from closing time.
The museum admission ticket included visitations to the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology and it was physically connected to the Natural History museum building itself. It was a bit of a rush though, so I didn’t get round to exploring the other two museums. Loss opportunity there.:(
So, fastest museum tour and exploration ever for me: starting with the Glass Flowers exhibit. Each were so realistically and intricately created I couldn’t believe they were made of glass.
The African Animals exhibit, with dozens of life-sized animals from the Savannahs.
The Holartic animals exhibit, which houses animals from the Northern Hemisphere of the United States:
The centerpiece of the museum: the Hall of Mammals. Several large whale skeletons are suspended from the ceiling: too large for pictures, but it’s in the video.
The Fossil Mammals exhibit, with several hoofed animals showcased:
Vertebrate paleontology and dinosaurs exhibit below: someone was working on one of the items:
OK that’s a wrap for the Museum. Plenty more pictures in the Flickr album for those of us so inclined.:)
Thanks for the post…and great photos. The Harvard Museum of Natural History is open 9 am to 5 pm, 361 days year, and is just a 7-8 minute walk from Harvard Square. To avoid getting lost (!), walk into Harvard Yard, and ask anyone to direct you toward Memorial Hall & the Harvard Science Center — and then you’ll see the banner for the museum just 100 yards further down Oxford Street on the right, when you walk between Memorial Hall & the Science Center. Or find the map at http://www.hmnh.harvard.edu
Thanks for the advice, Blue. I thought the Eyewitness map would suffice, but not only was it not to scale, it was missing too much detail that I ended up anywhere but the Museum that afternoon. I’m glad I found it eventually though.:)