The Academy of Natural Science
The Academy of Natural Science
The Academy of Natural Sciences has made tremendous progress in unlocking the secrets of life through its world-renown scientific research and expansive scientific collections, since it's founding in 1812. Located on Philadelphia's beautiful Museum Mile on Benjamin Franklin Parkway, the museum develops and presents exhibits and programs for a variety of visitors. Inside the museum you will find permanent exhibits on dinosaurs, dioramas, and Academy research.
The Academy is comprised of three main parts, museum, education and research.
The Mission Statement reads: Our mission is to create the basis for a healthy and sustainable planet through exploration, research, and education.
The discoveries that rocked the world then and now share four floors of exhibit space in this family-friendly museum that showcases the Academy's remarkable collections. The fully constructed Giganotosaurus, one of the largest meat-eating dinosaurs, towers over Dinosaur Hall, also home to fossils from the Hadrosaurus foulkii, discovered in New Jersey in 1856. You can climb inside a tyrannosaurus rex skull, try on horns and claws, and dig for fossils. Multitudes of butterflies from Kenya, Costa Rica and Malaysia flit around you in a simulated tropical rain forest. Large game animals acquired in the 1920s and 1930s are mounted in 3-D painted dioramas that replicate their natural habitats; for Philadelphians of that era, this was their first sighting of an Indian tiger or a wildebeest.
A few "did you know facts".
Did you know that the Academy's collections include:
the first dinosaur skeleton discovered in North America.
the only meteorite known to have fallen (in 1745) in the state of New Jersey.
John James Audubon's bird specimens.
226 plant specimens collected by Lewis and Clark.
the oldest collections of mollusks, fish and plants in the Western Hemisphere.
the first specimen of petrified wood ever collected.
over 17,000,000 specimens in all.
that the world's foremost expert on grasshoppers is an Academy Curator.
that the world's foremost expert on Neotropical catfish is an Academy Curator.
Other helpful information for the visitor:
Admission:
Senior - $7.50
Adult (Age 13 and above) - $7.50
Child (Age 3 through 12) - $6.50
Hours
Monday-Friday
10:00AM - 4:30PM
Saturdays, Sundays and Holidays
10:00AM - 5:00PM
