The Museum für Naturkunde, on Invalidenstraße in the Mitte district, is Berlin's great natural history museum. Under the glass roof of its entrance hall stands Giraffatitan brancai, listed by Guinness World Records as the largest mounted dinosaur skeleton in the world. The museum also shows the Berlin Archaeopteryx, the mounted polar bear Knut, a 19th-century minerals hall and a collection of fish and snakes preserved in alcohol. It is open Tuesday to Sunday, and children under 6 get in free, which makes it one of the city's most popular family outings. Allow two to three hours to see the dinosaurs, the wet collection, the minerals and the mounted animals without rushing.
Highlights
The dinosaur hall
As you walk in, you look up 13 metres to the head of Giraffatitan brancai, surrounded by other Jurassic dinosaurs such as Kentrosaurus, Diplodocus and Elaphrosaurus. The fossils come from the Tendaguru expedition (1909-1913) in present-day Tanzania. "Juraskope", a kind of interactive binoculars, show these animals as they looked in life. In the same hall, the Berlin Archaeopteryx is considered one of the best-preserved specimens in the world.
The wet collection
In the east wing, destroyed in the Second World War and reopened in 2010, a glass wall reveals part of the research collection: more than 320,000 jars and around one million animals preserved in a mixture of ethanol and water. The visible part shows mostly fish and snakes; many specimens are more than 200 years old.
The Invalidenstraße building
Since 1889 the museum has occupied this large classically inspired building, designed by August Tiede for the natural history collections of the University of Berlin. The 1945 bombing destroyed its east wing, which was only rebuilt in 2010 to house the wet collection. The museum is still a research institute today: most of its millions of specimens are not on display.
The minerals hall
In a 19th-century exhibition hall, the display cases show more than 1,000 mineral species from a collection of around 280,000 objects, including more than 1,100 pieces brought back by Alexander von Humboldt. The collection also holds around 7,000 meteorites and other extraterrestrial rocks.
Knut and the art of taxidermy
The hall devoted to specimen preparation brings together Knut the polar bear, once the star of [Berlin Zoo](/fr/attractions/zoo-de-berlin), Bobby the gorilla, mounted more than 90 years ago, Bao Bao the panda and a group of macaws. Further on, the "Evolution in Aktion" hall lines up birds, insects, crustaceans and mammals on a large wall to show the diversity of life.
Infos pratiques
Tips
Admission costs €11 for adults and €5 for children aged 6 and over and for concessions; the family ticket (two adults and up to three children under 14) costs €18, the "mini family" ticket (one adult and up to two children) €12; free for children under 6 (prices checked in October 2026). The museum recommends booking a timed ticket online, on sale 14 days ahead: you enter within the hour you chose, then stay as long as you like. Bags larger than A4 go to the free cloakroom, but suitcases are not accepted; the audio guide is free. On a grey day, it is one of the best ideas for [Berlin in the rain](/fr/articles/berlin-jour-de-pluie).
How to get there
Invalidenstraße 43, 10115 Berlin (Mitte). U-Bahn U6, Naturkundemuseum station, about 300 metres away; trams M5, M8, M10 and M12, U Naturkundemuseum stop; S-Bahn Nordbahnhof (S1, S2, S25, S26), about 900 metres away; Berlin Central Station (Hauptbahnhof) is about 1.3 km on foot. No parking at the museum. The [Hamburger Bahnhof](/fr/attractions/hamburger-bahnhof) is on the same street, and the [Berlin Wall Memorial](/fr/attractions/memorial-du-mur-de-berlin) starts at Nordbahnhof station.
Opening hours
Nearby
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