Museum of Zoology

The University Museum of Zoology sits in the David Attenborough Building on Cambridge’s New Museums Site, just north of Downing Street. The building once housed the Arup firm and now also shelters the Cambridge Conservation Initiative. The museum reopened in June 2018 after a £1.8 million Heritage Lottery Fund grant transformed it into a sustainable, welcoming space. Its displays were redesigned to show animal diversity and care for internationally important collections. The redevelopment added new stores, learning programmes and online resources for wider audiences. The museum’s collections date from the 19th century, when great expeditions first documented wildlife around the world. Early material came from the Harwood anatomical collection bought in 1814, and later additions included birds from William Swainson and specimens from the Cambridge Philosophical Society. Charles Darwin contributed to the society and the museum holds items he gathered on HMS Beagle. Past superintendents include William Clark, John Willis Clark and Sidney Frederic Harmer, who shaped the institution during its formative years. Visitors enter a hall dominated by Bobby, the finback whale skeleton, now cleaned and reassembled after storage. Skeletons and skins of extinct animals line the galleries, including dodo and Rodrigues solitaire remains. Fish preserved in spirit sit beside Darwin’s own specimens from the Beagle voyage. Bird skins, eggs and skeletons fill another section, while mollusc, coral and other sea-dwelling collections reveal ocean biodiversity. The displays bring together material from famous naturalists such as Alfred Russel Wallace and Alfred Newton, offering a view of the history of biology itself.