Steinhardt Museum of Natural History

The Steinhardt Museum opened in 2018 on the Tel Aviv University campus and is the largest natural history museum in the Levant. The collection covers the entire eastern Mediterranean region — preserved animal specimens, fossils, insects, and a particular focus on the bird migration routes that pass through Israel.

The permanent galleries are unusually well designed for a research-led museum: a giant illuminated wall map of bird migration, dioramas of the Mediterranean and Negev habitats, and a serious bone-and-skin study collection. About two hours; closed Saturdays.

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The collection — about five million specimens — was built up over a century by Hebrew University and Tel Aviv University and was held in cardboard boxes in basements until 2018, when a single large donation funded the construction of a six-storey purpose-built museum. The building is shaped like a Noah's Ark, with a steel-clad upper wing curving above the entrance.

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