Middle East’s largest natural history museum opens in Israel

Rebecca Stadlen Amir

The ark-shaped museum, located in Tel Aviv, houses 5.5 million specimens from around the world, from early human skulls to rare taxidermy pieces.

The Steinhardt Museum of Natural History in Tel Aviv. Photo by Oz Rittner

Upon entering the new natural history museum in Tel Aviv, visitors are greeted by a vivid re-enactment of the great avian migrations from Africa to Europe through northern Israel’s Hula Valley, complete with stuffed hawks, pelicans and vultures circling around the ceiling of the building’s entrance.

The 100,000-square-foot Noah’s Ark-shaped building, which houses more than 5.5 million specimens of species from around the globe, opened this week alongside the Tel Aviv University campus after more than two decades of planning.

As the biggest natural history museum in the Middle East and Israel’s national center for biodiversity studies, the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History highlights the country’s ecological diversity at the crossroads of the three continents, as well as the impact of urban development, climate change, and man-made devastation on the region’s ecosystems.

The main goal of the museum, according the curators, is to increase public awareness about the natural world and environment on a local and global scale.

The Steinhardt Museum of Natural History exhibit “Form and Function” showcases diversity of creatures from Israel and around the globe. Photo by Itay Benit

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