page_title: Oxford University Museum of Natural History
section_title: The museum today
hierarchical_section_title: Oxford University Museum of Natural History / The museum today
caption_attribution_description: Megalosaurus foot prints reconstructed on OUMNH lawn
context_page_description: The Oxford University Museum of Natural History, sometimes known simply as the Oxford University Museum or OUMNH, is a museum displaying many of the University of Oxford's natural history specimens, located on Parks Road in Oxford, England. It also contains a lecture theatre which is used by the university's chemistry, zoology and mathematics departments. The museum provides the only public access into the adjoining Pitt Rivers Museum.
context_section_description: The museum collections are divided into three sections: Earth Collections covering the Palaeontological collections and the mineral and rock collections, Life Collections which include zoological and entomological collections, and the Archive Collections. 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 front of house, education, outreach, IT, library, conservation and technical staff.
  Since 1997 the museum has benefited 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 and Minerals. There are also a number of popular touchable items, which include two bears, a fox and other taxidermy. Additionally there is a meteorite and large fossils and minerals. Visitors can also see large dinosaur reconstructions and a parade 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, numbering over 5 million specimens are held by the museum. The Hope Department was founded by Frederick William Hope and the first appointed curator of the collections was John Obadiah Westwood. Many important insect and arachnid specimens from various collectors and collections make up the museums holdings including (but not limited to) those of Octavius Pickard-Cambridge, George Henry Verrall, Pierre François Marie Auguste Dejean,  Pierre André Latreille, Alfred Russel Wallace, Charles Darwin, Jacques Marie Frangile Bigot, and Pierre Justin Marie Macquart among others.
  The roof of the museum is a popular nesting area for migrating swallows. Cameras have been installed which broadcast a live stream to a display near the main entrance.
  On March 17, 2020, the museum shut indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
caption: Megalosaur trail reconstruction
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