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The King of Dinosaurs

Visitor Hall

Experience the Museum's most iconic specimens!
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The Museum's most iconic attractions and visitor favorites—including Balto, Dunkleosteus (Dunk), Haplocanthosaurus (Happy), Lucy, and the Moon rock—are now showcased in a stunning Visitor Hall. Free to the public, this dramatic space will eventually serve as the gateway to the reimagined Cleveland Museum of Natural History. 

The 14,650-square-foot Visitor Hall features ceilings that soar to 21 feet and exhibits placed along a timeline that marks milestones in the history of the Earth. The timeline is generously funded by Cleveland Museum of Natural History Board of Directors member Doug McCreery and his wife, Dr. Laurie McCreery.

 

Enjoy Live Music in the Visitor Hall


The Cleveland Museum of Natural History is proud to host students from the Cleveland Institute of Music (CIM). Guests are invited to enjoy their performances in the Visitor Hall at noon every Thursday and Friday. The series provides students with real-world professional experience and represents a first-of-its-kind collaboration between the Museum and CIM.  

MUSEUM MELODIES SCHEDULE

SEPTEMBER: Thursday & Friday, September 5, 6, 12, 13, 19, 20, 26 & 27 
OCTOBER: Thursday & Friday, October 3, 4, 10, 11, 17, 18, 24, 25 & 31 
NOVEMBER: Thursday & Friday, November 1, 7, 8, 14, 15, 21, 22 & 29

All performances begin at noon in the Visitor Hall. Free; no tickets required.


New and Returning Icons Showcased in Extraordinary Ways


The Museum's iconic sauropod, Haplocanthosaurus delfsi, affectionately known as “Happy,” is the holotype specimen for the species H. delfsi. Happy was discovered by a Museum team in 1954 in Red Canyon, Colorado, and is the only known adult specimen of its kind that is complete enough to display in its entirety. Though Happy was originally mounted with its tail touching the floor, the specimen has been remounted by Research Casting International, a paleontological conservator in Ontario, Canada, to reflect recent research indicating that dinosaurs were more likely to hold their tails above the ground.


“Lucy” is the nickname for an Australopithecus afarensis partial skeleton discovered in Ethiopia in 1974 by an international team of scientists led by Dr. Donald Johanson, a former Museum curator. When the skeleton was discovered, it was the oldest and most complete hominin fossil ever found, with 40% of the skeleton unearthed. Lucy serves as an important reference that has expanded our understanding of the anatomy of the earliest human relatives and enhanced our knowledge of human evolution. Lucy's exhibit is sponsored by Robert J. and Linnet E. Fritz.


“Dunk,” or Dunkleosteus terrelli, was a giant armored fish that lived during the Late Devonian Period (~359 million years ago), when Ohio was covered by a tropical sea. Up to 20 feet in length and weighing more than 1 ton, this apex predator was capable of chomping on prehistoric sharks! Dunkleosteus had a massive skull made up of thick bony plates and two sets of fang-like protrusions near the front of its powerful, self-sharpening jawbones. In 2020, the Ohio General Assembly passed a bill declaring Dunkleosteus terrelli the official state fossil fish. 


Balto was the lead dog on the final leg of a heroic, 674-mile dogsled relay to deliver lifesaving medicine to Nome, Alaska, during a 1925 outbreak of diphtheria. Balto joined the Museum’s collection in 1933. While recently off exhibit, he underwent restoration to keep his taxidermy mount preserved for the next generation of husky-history fans! Balto's new showcase is sponsored by The Milton and Tamar Maltz Family Foundation.   



The Museum’s iconic Moon rock is on long-term loan from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). This 253-gram (half-pound) rock is the top third of a larger specimen originally collected by astronaut Alan Bean and one of 69 samples retrieved during the Apollo 12 mission in 1969. 




A captivating model of a bald eagle serves as an important reminder of the role the Museum has played in the protection of native Ohio species. In the mid-1970s, the Museum pioneered a bald eagle captive-breeding program that provided a model for similar initiatives around the country. Revolutionary for its time, the successful program proved that it was possible to restore populations of endangered species through captive breeding and release. Today, bald eagles—once a threatened species—are flourishing in Ohio and across the United States.  


A dramatic window of butterflies reminds guests of the beauty of nature and the importance of the Museum’s invertebrate zoology collection, which houses approximately 1 million specimens. Most of these specimens were collected from the northeastern United States beginning in the early 1900s. The collection represents a critical record of the biodiversity of the region.   



A dazzling display features specimens from the Jeptha Homer Wade II Collection of Gems & Jewels. Representative of the Museum’s mineralogy assets, this historical collection of faceted gemstones from around the world was collected and owned by Jeptha Homer Wade II, grandson of the noted Cleveland industrialist and benefactor. It is one of the finest collections of gem materials in North America and includes specimens such as a jade necklace, Mississippi River pearls, opals, and colored diamonds. 



Learn more about the Museum's transformation.