Museum of Comparative Zoology

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The Museum of Comparative Zoology is located on the grounds of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and is one of three museums which collectively comprise the Harvard Museum of Natural History. The director of the museum is Dr. James Hanken, the Louis Agassiz Professor of Zoology at Harvard University.

The museum was founded in 1859 through the efforts of Louis Agassiz and its is sometimes called "The Agassiz" after its founder. Agassiz designed the collection to illustrate the variety and comparative relationships of animal life.

The museum comprises twelve departments: Biological Oceanography, Entomology, Herpetology, Ichthyology, Invertebrate Paleontology, Invertebrate Zoology, Mammalogy, Marine Invertebrates, Malacology, Ornithology, Population Genetics, and Vertebrate Paleontology. The Ernst Mayr Library and its archives join in supporting the work of the museum.

In contrast to more modern museums, the Harvard Museum of Natural History has many hundreds of stuffed animals on display from the collections of The Museum of Comparative Zoology. Notable exhibits include whale skeletons, the largest turtle shell ever found (eight feet long), "the Harvard mastodon", a 50-foot long kronosaurus skeleton, the remains of a dodo and a coelacanth preserved in fluid.

Many of the exhibit entries also have historical significance, like a fossil sand dollar found by Charles Darwin in 1834, Captain Cook's mamo, and two pheasants that once belonged to George Washington.

This museum and the other institutions that comprise the Harvard Museum of Natural History are physically connected to the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology and one admission grants visitors access to both museums.