Queensland Museum Tropics (formerly the Museum of Tropical Queensland) sits on Flinders Street East, next to Reef HQ, and covers the natural history, Indigenous culture, and maritime heritage of the wet tropics. The star exhibit is the Pandora Room, dedicated to HMS Pandora — the ship sent to capture the Bounty mutineers, which sank on the Great Barrier Reef in 1791. The museum holds the largest collection of Pandora artefacts in the world, recovered from the wreck site since the 1980s.
Other galleries cover prehistoric marine reptiles discovered in outback Queensland, the ecology of the reef and rainforest, and the culture of the traditional owners of the region. Entry is cheaper than Reef HQ and the Pandora collection alone is worth the visit.