The Museu de Ciências Naturais on the campus of the Catholic University (PUC) is the main natural history museum in the city. It is best known for its paleontology collection — fossils from the Mesozoic, including some impressive dinosaur skeletons from sites in Minas Gerais — and for an extensive set of zoological and ecological dioramas covering the Atlantic Forest and the cerrado.
The museum is unusually child-friendly, with hands-on areas and a planetarium that runs daily shows. Allow two to three hours; the campus is on the western side of the city, which is best reached by taxi or car.