Oxford University Museum of Natural History - The Museum Today

The Museum Today

The museum has free entrance, is open daily from 10am to 5pm, and attracts over 300,000 visitors a year, including over 15,000 school children on organised visits.

Administratively, the museum is divided into four sections: Geology (covering the Palaeontological collections), Mineralogy (the mineral and rock collections), Zoology and Entomology. Each has a part-time Curator (who is also a university lecturer) and a full-time Assistant Curator. The museum is led by a Director (currently Professor Paul Smith (formerly Head of the School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Birmingham)), who succeeded Professor Jim Kennedy in 2011, and there are education, IT, library, conservation and technical staff.

Since 1997 the museum has benefitted from external funding, from Government and private sources, and undertaken a renewal of its displays. As well as central exhibits featuring the dodo and dinosaurs, there are sets of displays with contemporary designs but within restored Victorian cabinets, on a variety of themes: Evolution, Primates, the History of Life, Vertebrates, Invertebrates and Rocks & Minerals. There are also a number of popular touchable items, which include Mandy the Shetland Pony, a stuffed leopard and other taxidermy. Additionally there is a meteorite and large fossils and minerals. Visitors can also see large dinosaur reconstructions and a procession of mammal skeletons.

A famous group of ichnites was found in a limestone quarry at Ardley, 20 km northeast of Oxford, in 1997. They were thought to have been made by Megalosaurus and possibly Cetiosaurus. There are replicas of some of these footprints, set across the front lawn of the museum.

The Hope Entomological Collections are held by the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. The Hope Department was founded by Frederick William Hope.