Press
The museum's Communications and Marketing staff is available to assist you by providing background information, coordinating on-site photography and videography requests, and providing images to the news media of exhibitions, lecturers, or special programs.
Media Contact
Tim Letteney
Director of Communications and Marketing
letten@hmsc.harvard.edu (617) 496-6557
Press Releases
Collecting Wonders: Tomorrow’s Discoveries Exhibition Unlocks Treasures from Harvard’s Collections
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 , the Harvard Museum of Natural History (HMNH) brings some of Harvard’s most...
Harvard Museum of Natural History Admission Rates Increase July 1, 2026
Effective July 1, 2026, admission prices at the Harvard Museum of Natural History and the Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology will increase. Museum admission rates were last updated in September 2018. The new general admission rates will be: Adults...
Velvet Worms: A Fierce Hunter with a Secret Weapon Exhibit Opens at the Harvard Museum of Natural History
These unlikely predators make their home in the Arthropod Gallery on October 24, 2025 Cambridge, Mass., October 22, 2025—Imagine a land-dwelling creature that resembles a caterpillar hunting with a glue gun. Meet the velvet worm, neither a worm nor a...
Sea Monsters: Wonders of Nature and Imagination Exhibition Opens at the Harvard Museum of Natural History on June 29
The exhibition dives into the mystery and lore behind some of the ocean’s most fascinating creatures CAMBRIDGE, Mass., June 18, 2024—The idea of sea monsters has captivated us for centuries. The terrifying Kraken, the giant squid in Jules Verne’s Twenty...
New in the Glass Flowers gallery: The Blaschkas at the Microscope: Lessons in Botany
The special new exhibit in the Glass Flowers Gallery opens in the Harvard Museum of Natural History on Apr 20, 2024 CAMBRIDGE, Mass., April 16, 2024—The famous Ware Collection of Blaschka Glass Models of Plants (the Glass Flowers) includes a series of...
Ants and Termites: Nature’s Super Organisms opens in the Harvard Museum of Natural History Arthropods gallery
The new gallery explores these superorganisms’ intersecting history, biology, and behavior CAMBRIDGE, Mass., March 15, 2024— Arthropods: Creatures That Rule is a popular gallery in the Harvard Museum of Natural History that draws on Harvard research to...
Swimming with Sharks: A Deep Dive into Shark Biology and Behavior reveals the mysterious lives of sharks in the wild
The exhibition opens November 12 at the Harvard Museum of Natural History CAMBRIDGE, Mass., November 3, 2022—Nearly half a billion years ago, the first ancestors of a remarkable group of fishes exploded from the ocean’s tree of life, forever transforming...
Henry David Thoreau’s vast botanical collection inspires the new exhibition In Search of Thoreau’s Flowers: An Exploration of Change and Loss
The visually compelling and immersive exhibition opens May 14 at the Harvard Museum of Natural History CAMBRIDGE, Mass., April 20, 2022—A close reflection on Henry David Thoreau’s legacy brings into sharper focus his deep commitment to environmental...
The Harvard Museum of Natural History Picks Seasonal “Fruits in Decay” as the New Focus of the Glass Flowers Gallery
CAMBRIDGE, Mass., August 7, 2019 — Imagine an orchard, lush and bursting with ripe fruit in the sweltering summer sun. Not all of the fruit weighing down the branches and vines will be fit to consume. Some strawberries will dampen and shrivel with mold...
The Harvard Museum of Natural History Secures a Lunar Sample from NASA for Cosmic Origins Exhibition
CAMBRIDGE, Mass., July 20, 2019 — On this day in 1969, Neil Armstrong stepped down from the Apollo lunar lander and became the first human to make direct contact with a celestial body : Earth’s Moon. The Apollo 11 engineering and flight team had prepared...
The Harvard Museum of Natural History Presents a New Climate Change Exhibit Exploring the Global Impact of the Warming Climate on the Planet
CAMBRIDGE, Mass., January 31— The Harvard Museum of Natural History announces the new Climate Change exhibit that draws on the latest scientific information about our warming climate, the global and local consequences, and how to both reduce the fossil...
The Rockefeller Beetles Exhibit Opens Saturday, October 20, 2018 at Harvard Museum of Natural History
“The collection is superb, worldwide, and the biggest collection ever donated to Harvard University’s Museum of Comparative Zoology as far as we know,” said the MCZ’s entomology curator Brian D. Farrell. Over the span of 90 years, banker and...
Harvard Museum of Natural History Admission Rates Increase September 4, 2018
Effective September 4, 2018, the admission price at the Harvard Museum of Natural History will increase. The new admission rates are: adults, $15; seniors (65 and over), $13; college students and youth (3-18 years old), $10. Rates for groups of ten or...
Lily Simonson: Painting the Deep Exhibition to Open June 30, 2018 at Harvard Museum of Natural History
(CAMBRIDGE, MA) Glowing under black lights, California artist Lily Simonson’s luminescent paintings embody a synergy between art and science that reveals new ways of seeing and understanding life forms in the deep ocean. “Being in the deep sea feels like...
“Microbial Life: A Universe at the Edge of Sight” Exhibition to open February 17, 2018 at the Harvard Museum of Natural History
(CAMBRIDGE, MA) Thriving all around, and even within us, is a minute universe of astonishing and diverse lifeforms so small, they cannot be seen by the human eye. Microbial Life: A Universe at the Edge of Sight explores the fascinating realm of microbes...
Orb-Weavers: Web Masters of the Spider World opens October 21 at the Harvard Museum of Natural History
The Harvard Museum of Natural History announces a small special exhibit within the Arthropods: Creatures That Rule gallery entitled Orb-Weavers: Web Masters of the Spider World . The familiar spiral web of orb-weaving spiders is simultaneously a key...
Online Exhibition: Islands: Evolving in Isolation Now Live
The Harvard Museum of Natural History announces a new online exhibition, Islands: Evolving in Isolation, a rich resource which has been developed from the Harvard Museum of Natural History’s 2015-2017 exhibition of the same name. With bizarre woodpecker...
World in a Drop: Photographic Explorations of Microbial Life Opens August 26 at the Harvard Museum of Natural History
The Harvard Museum of Natural History announces a new photographic exhibition, World in a Drop: Photographic Explorations of Microbial Life, to open Saturday, August 26, 2017 and to extend through January 7, 2018. The minuscule ecosystem within a single...
What’s in a Name? The Process of Naming Species
Why are there Fried Egg and Purple People Eater jellyfish? How did the Johnny Cash tarantula get its name? Why do some species have multiple common names, and why do they all have Latin names? What’s in a Name? shows how scientists identify and name...
Next of Kin: Seeing Extinction through the Artist’s Lens, a new exhibition to open December 17 at the Harvard Museum of Natural History
The Harvard Museum of Natural History announces a new experiential art exhibition, Next of Kin: Seeing Extinction through the Artist’s Lens opening December 17, 2016, featuring new photographic work by visual artist Christina Seely and an installation...