Self-Guided Highlights Tour

From dinosaurs to diamonds, these are the Museum's must-see exhibits.

For free guided tours during your visit, check tour listings.

For turn-by-turn navigation during your visit, as well as behind-the-scenes stories about exhibits, quizzes, and more, download the Museum’s free Explorer app.

Exhibit Giant Sequoia Tree The giant sequoia offers a glance at more than 1,400 years of history. Until it was felled by lumberjacks in 1891, the tree from... Floor 1 | Exhibit Hall: Hall of North American Forests Exhibit Lucy "Lucy" is one of the most complete skeletons found to date from the early hominids that flourished between 4 and 2 million... Floor 1 | Exhibit Hall: Anne and Bernard Spitzer Hall of Human Origins Exhibit African Elephants The African elephant is the largest living land mammal. Both male and female African elephants have ivory tusks. Exhibit Rapa Nui (Easter Island) Moai Cast Rapa Nui (Easter Island) is famous for its rows of moai, towering figures of deified ancestors that were carved in quarries. Floor 3 | Exhibit Hall: Margaret Mead Hall of Pacific Peoples Exhibit Galápagos Giant Tortoise The huge Galápagos tortoise was once so plentiful that ships loaded up on as many as 700 live animals; a single tortoise could provide... Floor 3 | Exhibit Hall: Hall of Reptiles and Amphibians Exhibit Dinosaur Mummy The Museum’s dinosaur mummy is a fossilized imprint of the carcass of a duck-billed dinosaur. Floor 4 | Exhibit Hall: Hall of Ornithischian Dinosaurs Exhibit The Glen Rose Trackway See a 107-million-year-old series of fossilized dinosaur footprints, excavated from a riverbed in Texas. Floor 4 | Exhibit Hall: Hall of Saurischian Dinosaurs Exhibit Stegosaurus At one time, some scientists thought Stegosaurus had a second brain because the one in its head seemed so small. Floor 4 | Exhibit Hall: Hall of Ornithischian Dinosaurs Exhibit The Titanosaur This cast is of a 122-foot-long dinosaur that lived in forests of today’s Patagonia about 100 to 95 million years ago. Floor 4 | Exhibit Hall: Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Orientation Center Permanent Hall Harriet and Robert Heilbrunn Cosmic Pathway This 360-foot-long path in the Rose Center for Earth and Space lays out the 13-billion-year history of the universe. Floor 2 | Exhibit Hall: Harriet and Robert Heilbrunn Cosmic Pathway