Harvard Museum of Natural History

10/21/2026

10/21/2026

What happens after dark on the Thursday before Halloween? You will have to navigate the hallowed halls to find out. During this free evening event on October 29 visitors can trick-or-treat their way through the galleries and:

🕷️Encounter mysterious specimens rarely seen by the public.
🫣 Discover collections drawn from the museum’s shadowy corners and uncover the eerie, fascinating stories behind them, including rare objects from the Collecting Wonders exhibit
🪱 Don a Halloween costume and snap photos at our photo booth.
👻 Decorate a trick-or-treat bag.
🧊 Enjoy beverages for purchase (valid government ID required for alcohol)
💐 Enter a free raffle to win museum gifts and membership.

RSVPs are encouraged, and free event parking is available with registration by October 28. See more details:
https://tinyurl.com/ArtsThursdaysOct2026

10/09/2026

Let’s play telephone! ☎️ The catch? The next player hasn’t even been born yet. Over millions of years, mammals have been playing “intergenerational telephone,” sharing messages about the environment with their developing offspring.

Join Sasha Post, Graduate Student, Harvard Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, for a presentation on the strategies humans use to play telephone, why these strategies evolved, and how we can change the game to improve public health.

Regular museum admission rates apply. See details:
https://tinyurl.com/ScienceSpotlightsOct26

09/28/2026

Reminder: This Friday, 10/2 at 5:30 PM, Peter Grima will be presenting “Emily Dickinson: The Poet as Botanist.” This program is free, open to all, and will occur in-person at Harvard University and on Zoom. Visit our website for details and registration information. See you there! https://rhodora.org/meetings/
(Photo Credit: Houghton Library, Harvard University)
Harvard Museums of Science & Culture

09/27/2026

The Nor’easter couldn’t stop our Celebremos plans! Visitors learned about Native Birds of Puerto Rico and cultivating coffee, made Guanín pendants that honor the Taíno people and clay figures of Saints using techniques from wood carvers, enjoyed Bomba music and dancing, and more. Thank you to everyone who made it out despite the rain. See you next year! 🇵🇷

📷 by EJSP Visual - Julieta Sarmiento Photography

09/22/2026

We hope you'll join us for Half-Earth Day 2026, Half-Earth at 10: Honoring A Legacy of Hope on October 12 in Sanders Theatre!

Scientists, artists, and Indigenous leaders will explore how courage, imagination, and wisdom pass from one generation to the next - including Florian Schulz, Photographer & Speaker at National Geographic.

Florian's photography documents Alaskan wildlife in one of the most remote landscapes left on Earth, one of the last great functioning wilderness systems we have.

At Half-Earth Day, he’ll share immersive stories of caribou migrations, polar bears, bears, whales, and the Indigenous communities connected to these living ecosystems.

Tickets on sale now at https://bit.ly/4rdtoEl

Presented by the E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation together with the Museum of Comparative Zoology, the Harvard University Herbaria, the Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability, and the Harvard University Native American Program.

Sponsoring free admission to the Harvard Museum of Natural History and the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology on October 12, Indigenous Peoples' Day.

09/17/2026

Don't you just want to boop his nose? An amazing discovery!

Breaking news! Scientists have described the first new wild cat species in over a century: Leopardus tilcayo (the Tilcayo cat). 🐾

Found in Bolivia’s Yungas cloud forest by an international research team — including Paola Nogales Ascarrunz — this elusive, 3-pound feline is smaller than the average domestic cat.

Long thought to belong to a single widespread species, DNA analysis revealed five distinct wild cats — including L. tilcayo, defined by its slender frame, muted fur and extra-large spot markings. "We chose to name the species 'Tilcayo' — the name local communities use to describe the cat," shares Nogales Ascarrunz. "It’s our way of honoring their ancestral knowledge and connection to this animal."

Scientists are now deploying camera traps across the cloud forest to find L. tilcayo in the wild and build targeted conservation plans to protect them from habitat loss. “Describing a new cat species after more than 100 years shows how much we still have to learn about the biodiversity around us. But it also reminds us that we need to protect the Yungas forests, which are home to so many species — including some we are only beginning to understand.”

Photos by fellow Explorer Fernando Faciole

09/14/2026

Romer Hall in the Harvard Museum of Natural History is home to the world’s only mounted Kronosaurus, a 42-foot-long prehistoric marine reptile, which was originally found somewhat by chance.

In 1931, graduate student William E. Schevill was touring Queensland after participating in a Museum of Comparative Zoology expedition. There he met Australian rancher R. W. H. Thomas, who showed William bones embedded in limestone on his grounds. The bones turned out to be the most complete skeleton of a Kronosaurus ever discovered! In 1958, the restored skeleton was unveiled in Romer Hall.

09/08/2026

How would you communicate if you were rooted in place like a plant, unable to move around or speak? Over hundreds of millions of years, plants have evolved to interact with the environment around them.

Stop by the Harvard Museum of Natural History on Saturday, September 19, from 2:00–2:30 pm ET, to hear how Claire Li, graduate student, Molecular and Cellular Biology, Harvard, decodes the chemical language of plants, and exciting ways humans can put these compounds to use.

Regular museum admission rates apply; recommended for ages 10 and up. More details: https://tinyurl.com/SciSpotlightsSept26

09/02/2026

Caroline Fernald, Harvard Museums of Science & Culture Director, is a self-proclaimed Dolly Parton Super-Fan. Dolly was a powerful ally to the LGBTQ+ community. In her life and in her songwriting, she championed marriage equality, challenged discrimination among her peers, and supported trans rights. Parton wrote the song "Travelin’ Thru“ for Transamerica, the film about a transgender woman traveling across the country, and received an Academy Award nomination for best original song. 🏳️‍⚧️

This blue morpho butterfly 🦋 on view in the new exhibit Collecting Wonders is dual gender--it has two sets of DNA in one individual. The bright blue half has male traits, and the dark-edge half has female traits. This is called bilateral gynandromorphism: it affects one in about 10,000 butterflies. Growing up in Tennessee, Dolly loved chasing butterflies among the Great Smoky Mountains and appreciated the symbolism of their beauty and freedom, even incorporating butterfly-inspired designs into her Dollywood branding.