Welcome to the Southern Minnesota Museum of Natural History!

“The biggest little museum in Minnesota.”

Amber dagger fly is an insect trapped in Baltic Amber. We hope to raise money for a museum microscope so kids can examine insect specimens like this one.
A fish slab is from the Green River Formation in Utah/Wyoming
A flower beetle in Baltic amber.
Oreodonts are the most commonly found fossil of the White River Badlands, and this is an exceptional specimen, showing the animal curled up inside its burrow.
An example of our fluorescent minerals. Kids use a longwave UV flashlight to illuminate fluorescent specimens, like this Pegmatite fragment.
Titanus giganteus is the world's largest beetle . Yes, we have the largest known specimen in the world!
A trilobite from the "Time Vault" where kids can handle real fossils from all time periods.
While hunting for fossils the unexpected is sometimes discovered. These finds range from pottery shards to this "fossil lightning" found in California.