University of Michigan Museum of Natural History

University of Michigan Museum of Natural History
U.S. Historic district Contributing property
The Hall of Evolution
Location	1105 N University Ave, Ann Arbor, Michigan
Website	lsa.umich.edu/ummnh
Part of	University of Michigan Central Campus Historic District (ID78001514[1])
Designated CP	June 15, 1978

The University of Michigan Museum of Natural History (UMMNH) is a natural history museum of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States.

A unit of the university's College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, the current building is located in the Biological Sciences Building on the university's Central Campus. The museum has about 45,000 square feet of exhibit space.^[2] The natural history collections began in 1837, and for many years the museum was based in the Alexander Ruthven Museums Building, dating to 1928, that it shared with three research museums (Anthropology, Zoology, Paleontology).^[2] The museum also used to be administered through the same organization as the University Herbarium. The public exhibit museum was founded in 1956,^[3] and today has more than 100,000 visitors annually.^[2]

The museum is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt non-profit organization.^[2] It employs 23 full-time staff and between 50 and 70 paid student docents.^[2]

The museum has four major permanent exhibits:

• The Hall of Evolution on the second floor displays exhibits on evolution and prehistoric life, including fossils, models, and dioramas of dinosaurs, ancient whales, mastodons, and other organisms. It is the largest collection on prehistoric life in Michigan.
• The Michigan Wildlife Gallery on the third floor displays exhibits on birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, plants, and fungi native to the Great Lakes. There are taxidermy specimens, exhibits on habitats, and displays about regional environmental problems. A mastodon trackway, the largest on display in the world, is part of this exhibit.
• The Anthropology Displays feature exhibits on anthropology, and include artifacts from human cultures around the world.
• The Geology Displays on the fourth floor feature a collection of the several rocks and minerals.

Two galleries display exhibits on "Evolution & Health" and archaeological research work in the U-M Museum of Archaeological Anthropology. The first floor Rotunda Lobby currently displays "The Invisible World of Mites".

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  Lobby rotunda in the Alexander Ruthven Museums Building
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  The Michigan Wildlife Gallery in the Alexander Ruthven Museums Building
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  The Michigan Wildlife Gallery in the Alexander Ruthven Museums Building
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  The Michigan Wildlife Gallery in the Alexander Ruthven Museums Building
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  Previous Michigan Wildlife Gallery: Opossums
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  Previous Hall of Evolution: Permian Period
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  Previous Hall of Evolution: Triassic Period
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  Previous Hall of Evolution: Cretaceous Period
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  Previous Hall of Evolution: Oligocene Epoch
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  Replica of an Archaeopteryx fossil

• Official website

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