Cleveland’s Museum of Natural History has opened a new Visitor Hall that will showcase a timeline of the history of the universe as well as eight of the museum’s most iconic exhibits, returning to public view.
The visitor hall is the first and central piece of a bigger transformation that will also see new wings added to the building by next year, with space for re-imagined exhibits and expansion.
The museum lists the exhibits re-installed in the Visitor Hall
- Our iconic sauropod, Haplocanthosaurus delfsi, known as “Happy,” is a holotype specimen for the species H. delfsi. Happy was discovered by a Museum team in 1954 in Colorado and is the most complete adult specimen of its kind.
- Lucy, the world-famous, 3.2-million-year-old partial fossil skeleton of the species Australopithecus afarensis, was discovered in Ethiopia in 1974 by Dr. Donald Johanson, a former curator at the Museum.
- Dunk, or Dunkleosteus terrelli, is a giant armored fish that was one of the fiercest creatures alive three hundred and fifty-eight million years ago.
- Balto, the lead dog of a 1925 team of sled dogs that traveled 674 miles to deliver lifesaving medicine to a remote area of Alaska. Balto’s new showcase is sponsored by The Milton and Tamar Maltz Family Foundation.
- The Museum’s iconicMoon Rock, on long-term loan from NASA.
- A model of a Bald Eagle—an important reminder that the Museum pioneered a successful bald eagle breeding program in the 1970s.
- A dramatic window of Butterflies represents the Museum’s important Invertebrate Zoology collection—housing approximately 1 million specimens.
- The Jeptha Homer Wade II Collection of Gems & Jewels. The display is representative of the Museum’s Mineralogy assets, including materials from the Earth (rocks and minerals) and beyond (meteorites).
