# Collecting Wonders: Tomorrow’s Discoveries Exhibition Unlocks Treasures from Harvard’s Collections June 24, 2026 *Open June 27, 2026, through April 2027 in the Harvard Museum of Natural History* **Cambridge, Mass., June 24, 2026—**In the new exhibition[ *Collecting Wonders: Tomorrow’s Discoveries*](https://www.hmnh.harvard.edu/collecting-wonders)*,* 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. A chunk of a meteorite, a whale vertebra, a Komodo dragon skull that inspired *King Kong*, and a great white shark jaw are among the larger items on display. Andrew Williston, Collection Manager, Ichthyology, Museum of Comparative Zoology, says, “There are not a lot of large shark specimens in museums … people come from around the world to see these.” To mark the 250th Anniversary of the American Revolution, the exhibition celebrates specimens that bridge scientific discovery and historical moments. In 1786, the Marquis de Lafayette presented George Washington with a pair of Golden Pheasants, now on view in the gallery. Visitors can also find George Washington’s sash at the neighboring[ Peabody Museum](https://peabody.harvard.edu/news/2026/04/special-exhibit-washingtons-sash) (admission grants access to both museums). History buffs will be pleased to see a fossil sand dollar collected by Charles Darwin, a banded sunfish caught by Henry David Thoreau, and a woodpecker from the Lewis and Clark Expedition. “Going the way of the dodo” is often shorthand for extinction. In this exhibition, the dodo lives on as a fully articulated skeleton. Visitors will discover an extinct golden toad that once thrived in the Monteverde Cloud Forest Preserve of Costa Rica. "The specimens provide a snapshot in time about a species and where it occurred," explains Jeremiah Trimble, Curatorial Associate and Collection Manager of Ornithology. "People can use them to look at how genetics have changed within a species over time.” In the natural world, not everything is what it seems: a dual-gender blue morpho butterfly, a prehistoric seed fern that helped fuel the Industrial Revolution, and lab-grown rubies. All are on view in the exhibit, where visitors can learn their backstories. "Dead plants and their data tell a surprising number of stories when you look closely, and the discoveries of the stories is one of the best jobs,” says Dr. Michaela Schmull, Director of Collections, Curator of Ferns, Harvard University Herbaria. For fans of Harvard's legendary Glass Flowers, models of a coneflower and a glass moth are paired with a burnet moth from the Museum of Comparative Zoology's entomology vaults. The Augustus Hamlin pendant is a gallery showstopper. Made of tourmaline and topaz sourced from Mt. Mica, ME, the Hamlin necklace, as Raquel Alonso Perez, Curator of Harvard Mineralogical and Geological Museum, notes, “brings a scientific sensibility into the world of adornment—an approach rooted in curiosity and experimentation. To me, it marks a turning point in how minerals were imagined in jewelry.” Visitors can also see the stunning Hamlin Necklace on view in the Mineral Gallery down the hall. Far from just relics of the past, these items actively fuel cutting-edge science. A 600-million-year-old rock from Gakara Mine, western Burundi, contains rare earth elements that power wind turbines, smartphones, and electric vehicle batteries. With other objects, Harvard scientists are using technologies such as CT scans and DNA extraction to pioneer everything from stem cell research (via regenerating panther worms) to liver cancer treatments (via sea snail venom). For museum hours and visitor information, please visit [hmsc.harvard.edu/visit](https://hmsc.harvard.edu/visit). **About the Harvard Museums of Science & Culture** The HMSC mission is to foster curiosity and a spirit of discovery in visitors of all ages by enhancing public understanding of and appreciation for the natural world, science, and human cultures. HMSC works in concert with Harvard faculty, museum curators, students, and members of the extended Harvard community to provide interdisciplinary exhibitions, events, lectures, and educational programs for students, teachers, and the public. HMSC draws primarily upon the extensive collections of the member museums and the research of their faculty and curators. **History** The Harvard Museums of Science & Culture (HMSC) partnership was established on July 1, 2012, by former Edgerley Family Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Michael D. Smith, to develop a strong, coordinated public face for the six research museums that are within the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard: See hours and admission rates on each of the HMSC museum websites: - [Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments](http://chsi.harvard.edu/index.html) - [Harvard Museum of Natural History](https://hmnh.harvard.edu/) - [Harvard University Herbaria](https://huh.harvard.edu/) - [Mineralogical and Geological Museum](https://mgmh.fas.harvard.edu/) - [Museum of Comparative Zoology](https://mgmh.fas.harvard.edu/) - [Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East](https://hmane.harvard.edu/) - [Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology](https://www.peabody.harvard.edu/) **Press contact:** Bethany Carland-Adams Public Relations Specialist Harvard Museums of Science & Culture 617 496 6064 See also:- [ Press Release ](/news-type/press-release) Share on:- [ Facebook ](#) - [ Twitter ](#) - [ Linkedin ](#)