#  Collecting Wonders: Tomorrow’s Discoveries 

 



    ![Dodo skeleton](/sites/g/files/omnuum4986/files/styles/hwp_1_1__720x720_scale/public/2026-06/%2Adodo_CollectingWonders.small%C2%A9TonyRinaldo_6566_0.jpg?itok=18BxbKwe) 

 



 

 Dodo (*Raphus cucullatus*) articulated skeleton. Photo by Tony Rinaldo.



   

*Open June 27, 2026, through April 2027*

When you imagine a museum, you might picture cases of artifacts. But the objects on display at the Harvard Museum of Natural History are a tiny percentage of the total collections. Behind the scenes, experts care for 26 million specimens. These objects form the basis for studying life on Earth. They are records of the planet from different times and places. Objects span billions of years and come from every continent, ocean, and beyond.

In the new exhibition *Collecting Wonders: Tomorrow’s Discoveries*, the Harvard Museum of Natural History (HMNH) brings some of Harvard’s most extraordinary research and teaching specimens into the light, many on public display for the first time. Visitors can learn about the biodiversity and beauty of our shared world, spanning billions of years. From a massive polar bear to tiny jewel-like beetles, these specimens are stone and bone, plant and animal, feather, fish, and fossil.

A collaboration between the Harvard Museums of Science & Culture and the university’s three natural history research museums—the Museum of Comparative Zoology (MCZ), the Harvard University Herbaria (HUH), and the Mineralogical and Geological Museum (MGMH)—the exhibition showcases rare objects from the collection vaults that people continue to study and uncover new knowledge.

Come explore some treasures of the collection!

#### Explore historic specimens presented to mark the 250th Anniversary of the United States Declaration of Independence on June 27.

   ![Two taxidermy pheasants](/sites/g/files/omnuum4986/files/styles/hwp_1_1__720x720_scale/public/2026-03/Pheasants.jpg?itok=p5gPju2g) 

 

George Washington’s Golden Pheasants (Chrysolophus pictus).**George Washington’s Pheasants**

These golden birds have a story! They lived in the aviary of French King Louis XVI. The Marquis de Lafayette sent them to George Washington in November 1786. When the birds died, Washington gave them to Charles Wilson Peale, who ran a museum in Philadelphia. The labels on the wooden base may be original to Peale’s display.

   ![Taxidermy woodpecker](/sites/g/files/omnuum4986/files/styles/hwp_1_1__720x720_scale/public/2026-04/Woodpecker.jpg?itok=FKCXn5Lz) 

 

Lewis’s woodpecker (*Melanerpes lewis*).**A Woodpecker from the Lewis & Clark Expedition**

On May 27, 1806, in what is now Idaho, Meriwether Lewis wrote about this woodpecker. “The belly and breast is a curious mixture of white and blood red.” Lewis collected this specimen and brought it back East. It is the only complete specimen from the Lewis & Clark expedition. It is a type specimen—the example used to represent and describe a new species.