Harvard Museum of Natural History

Usually I’m perfectly happy to stay in my lane and review Euro-kitsch. I didn’t really expect to be visiting the United States any time soon. Life takes some unexpected turns, though, and suddenly I find myself in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It’s a town named after a famous university that houses a completely different famous university. And where there’s universities, there’s museums. So let’s make every Bostonian cringe and pahk the cah at hahvahd yahd. (Joke’s on us, you can’t actually park your car there.)

Established in 1998 after some mergers, the Harvard Museum of Natural History is housed in this big building along with three other scientific and anthropological museums, together forming the Harvard Museums of Science and Culture. I believe a single ticket provides access to all four of them, and indeed we found ourselves taking a wrong turn and ending up at the Peabody! I don’t know if anyone would have the stamina to see all four in a day, but it would certainly be an interesting day out.

Taking the main NHM entrance was the easiest option, though it involved some staircase climbing, which was less than ideal as we had one in our party with reduced mobility. There are elevators in the building, but they are elsewhere, so full stairless access would have involved more wayfinding. That’s probably the biggest criticism I will have.

Our first featured exhibit is this one, showcasing the Blaschka Glass Flowers. So what’s up with this? Over a period of fifty years in the 19th and 20th century, father and son Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka made this enormous and supremely detailed collection of model plants, flowers and leaves, plus enlarged details and cross-sections, completely out of glass! Astonishing.

Here is one example of the extraordinary work of the Blaschkas. None of this looks like glass at all, the level of detail and realism is truly something else. Such utter devotion to such a unique craft. Even to those who don’t know much about botany or glasswork, this first exhibition hall is spectacular, beautiful and utterly unexpected. Harvard immediately has a winner with this collection. And there’s more Blaschka to come!

Our route into the museum proper begins with a primer on evolution, much needed and appreciated. It goes through all the main talking points: genetics, homologies, selection, convergent evolution and Darwin on the Beagle. There’s little here that will be unfamiliar to you if you are a reader of this blog, but, well, you know how it is with people. Sometimes, some extra education doesn’t go amiss.

Something for the pigeon fanciers. You know who you are! Here’s some unnatural selection at work.

Here’s more Blaschka! In addition to plants, the Blaschkas also did a lot of aquatic invertebrates. You know, the kinds of animals you can’t stuff. Once more, this is gorgeous work.

They are part of this wonderful and very lovely invertebrate exhibit, also featuring lots of prepared specimens and nicely put together displays. One highlight here is a video showcasing the many different hunting strategies of spiders.

Our first great big fossil mount is this moa, standing twice as tall as a human! Nice! It’s a bit of a shame that all fossils in the entire museum are behind glass, making glare a bit of an issue when taking photographs on a mobile phone.

On to the Cenozoic fossils we go, and the Harvard Museum has a wonderful and comprehensive collection. All sorts of spectacular megafauna from the Americas can be found here, fully mounted and very informative. Here is Teleoceras, a rhino relative that has the body proportions of a hippo.

The hallways between the skeleton displays are quite narrow here, and everything is once again behind glass. This makes photographing the mounts somewhat of a challenge. Here is a horse evolution exhibit, a parade of increasingly large horses.

Among the most spectacular specimens here are a trio of South American Pleistocene giants: Toxodon, Panocthus the glyptodont and Lestodon the ground sloth. Even though the museum exists in its current location only since 2012, this exhibit feels like it’s been around forever.

Another staple of cenozoic fauna in the Americas is the mastodon, Mammut americanum. It’s shorter and stockier than an elephant, and, as someone who is quite familiar with elephant teeth, it has teeth that look truly bizarre to me. This specimen apparently came from New Jersey. Other animals on display here include a calicothere and a couple of oreodonts, plus many other smaller mammals. If there would be something I’d change, I’d give every mount some accompanying modern artwork to make it feel more alive and colourful. This exhibit is a bit brown-beige. Also, it’s hard to tell what is real bone and what is replica, which is always a pet peeve of mine. And we’re about to see a particularly egregious example…

We’re leaving the Cenozoic mammals for the airy Romer hall and the Mesozoic, and probably the most famous (arguably infamous) specimen at the Harvard Museum: the only mounted Kronosaurus in the world. This thing is the size of a whale. Nicknamed “Plasterosaurus”, this long skeleton has a long, storied history full of misadventures. Mounted with a generous heap of plaster and little regard for anatomic correctness, its bodily proportions are all over the place, and it has any number of ribs and vertebrae too many. It’s hard to know what’s real bone anymore short of a full and expensive CT scan, and for this reason the specimen is not especially useful to pliosaur researchers.

I must admit I know all this from external sources; the signs at the museum itself don’t mention any of this and they’d much rather have you think this is what a real Kronosaurus looks like. Compare that to the Megatherium in Madrid, where the sign notes duly that the mount is kept in its original state for historic reasons.

It’s cool though.

The rest of the Romer hall is full of fossils from all over the Mesozoic and Palaeozoic. There’s the expected flat ichthyosaurs and pterosaurs on the walls. I like how this one is seen from the underside.

Dinosaurs are not overly represented at the museum. Plateosaurus here, opposite Kronosaurus, is the biggest full dinosaur mount. I’ve seen Plateosaurus mounts elsewhere, but I think this is the biggest I’ve seen so far. That might just be because it’s in the old-fashioned, tail dragging “kangaroo pose”, complete with bunny hands. I’d love to know more about the history of this mount, but the signage, as with Kronosaurus, is mum about it historic significance. Again the glare from the glass is slightly disappointing.

Other dinosaurs are present in this display, showing mostly skulls as well as a full Heterodontosaurus. The Corythosaurus, Stegoceras and Ceratosaurus skulls are particularly gorgeous. The counter lighting from the window was not my friend, though.

There’s not an overabundance of dinosaurs. Plenty of attention is given, however, to the synapsids of the Carboniferous and Permian. Dimetrodon, the most famous of these, is represented by a smaller member of the species. Dimetrodon come in all sizes. This is D. milleri, one of the smallest.

Long-snouted Ophiacodon, the temnospondyl Eryops and sail-backed Edaphosaurus are also among the Carboniferous and Permian fauna mounted here. A very good collection. I believe these all come from the Red Beds in Texas.

This Triassic dicynodont completes a very strong synapsid collection at the Romer hall.

A preserved coelacanth is also present here. Unlike the one I saw in Vienna, this one doesn’t seem to have lost its colour. I’m not super comfortable with the term “living fossil”. I believe every extant organism has its own place in the modern ecosystem and the fact that all its family has died out doesn’t make it any less of a modern creature. Still, you can see how a creature like this would have its place in a Palaeozoic-Mesozoic fossil exhibition.

It’s a big museum! There’s an exhibition on sharks, an exhibition on sea monsters as they appear on vintage maps (“here be dragons”) and an exhibition on climate change. Some of them, I must admit, I slightly sped through. There’s lots of beautiful things to see.

As we get to the parade of modern animals in taxidermy, we as usual get to the question how to organize it all. We’ve seen the animal kingdom organized according to taxonomy, theme and pure aesthetics. Harvard simply organizes the animals by continent, which means we’ve got an Africa hall, an Asia hall and an Americas hall. Fascinating how every museum has a different approach.

This is Africa. Within the hall, the animals are further divided into biomes. The rainforest, savannah, desert and marshland animals are grouped together. As was the case with the Cenozoic mammals, we’re walking through a narrow hall with displays behind glass on all sides. Everything is very compact and tightly packed together, creating a very busy space. Other than all the specimens, the rooms are sparsely dressed up, which is not necessarily a bad thing given how much there is to look at already. I must say that there is a distinct formaldehyde smell here. That’s not always the case in natural history museums.

Any natural history museum worth its salt should dedicate at least some attention to the local nature, and indeed the Harvard Museum has a room for the forests of New England.

This is a slightly more spacious and dressed-up exhibit. The fact that not all the specimens are behind glass also serves to make it feel more open and modern.

I regret to inform you that during my time in New England I have not taken much time to see wildlife, apart from some wild turkeys. When it comes to local nature, this was my lot.

At the far end, another massive taxidermy hall, three whales big and two stories high! It’s called the Great Mammal Hall and it’s probably the biggest room here. Whales on the ceiling, birds along the balconies an all kinds of animals in cabinets on the floor. I’m guessing everything they couldn’t fit anywhere else is here. At this point, I felt my entry fee was well spent.

Even the whales are unique. There’s a sperm whale and a fin whale, and this one here must be a right whale, a species I’ve never seen before. And the baleen whales still have their baleens in! Awesome stuff.

Here’s another exhibit on aquatic life, with a mock-up aquarium! Actually, I thought it was real for a moment, so I did feel a small pang of disappointment. It’s a nicely put-together exhibit but I wonder if styling it as an aquarium is one layer of kayfabe too many.

And then, there’s the geology. Another staple of these museums. Sometimes I think I should be more into geology and precious minerals, there’s a whole world to discover here and my appreciation doesn’t go beyond “look at the shinies!” We were getting pretty tired so we didn’t spend as much time here as it probably deserved.

This must be the most beautiful ammonite in the sea, though!

As you can see, there’s lots and lots to see at the Harvard Museum of Natural History, and I haven’t even gotten to the other museums at the same building! I’ve seen part of the Peabody (not to be confused with the Yale Peabody in Connecticut) which shows some impressive artifacts from the pre-columbian Americas. Certainly a different flavour, but equally worthy of attention!

How is this American museum different from the many European ones I visited during my career at Chasmosaurs? Honestly, it’s on par. I’m pretty familiar with American showmanship and how easily it can tip over into its own brand of kitsch. It’s easy for a museum to fall into the Disneyfication of all things, and I’ve seen it happen on both sides of the pond. At this museum, that doesn’t happen. Most of the exhibitions present nature as it is, without much need for extra dress-up or theatricality. The museum lets the awesomeness of nature speak for itself. What exhibitions there are that have extra themeing – the New England forest and faux aquarium are the strongest examples – don’t stand out in a bad way, they just add a touch of whimsy in a place that, most of all, is filled with respect for science. I feel that the museum lives up to the renown of the university it’s attached to, and it is not to be missed if you’re a nature lover who suddenly finds themself in Massachusetts.

And, most exciting of all, it is not even the only museum with dinosaurs in the greater Boston area! There is another down the road, and it is a completely different beast. Next up: The Boston Museum of Science!