University of Michigan Museum of Natural History

The university's natural history collections began in 1837, and the first formal museum for their exhibit was established in 1881. In 1925, the state legislature appropriated $900,000 (equivalent to $12,800,000 in 2024) for the construction of a new museum building, which would house researchers' offices and public exhibits. The new University Museums Building was completed in 1928, and housed museums of anthropology, paleontology and zoology, and a herbarium. The first public exhibits in the new building opened in the winter of 1929.

The University Museums Building was built with two pedestals at its main entrance for sculptures, but none were installed at the time of its construction. In 1940, two sculptures of pumas, designed by Carleton W. Angell and cast in terrazzo, were created. The pumas were cast by the Detroit unit of the Works Progress Administration to Angell's design, and installation was complete by August 1940. The building was renamed after Alexander G. Ruthven, director of the museum and later president of the university.

The public exhibit museum was founded in 1956, following a reorganization of the university's science departments. A planetarium was added in 1959, and the building was expanded in 1964.

The museum closed to the public in 2017 to move its collection to the new Biological Sciences Building, constructed adjacent to the Ruthven building on the university's Central Campus. The new building includes classrooms, researchers' offices, and the museum's exhibit spaces. The relocated museum reopened in 2019.

The museum is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt non-profit organization. In 2019, it employed 23 full-time staff and over 50 paid student docents.

The museum has four major permanent exhibits:

• The Hall of Evolution on the second floor displays exhibits on evolution and prehistoric life, including fossils, models, and dioramas of dinosaurs, ancient whales, mastodons, and other organisms. It is the largest collection on prehistoric life in Michigan.
• The Michigan Wildlife Gallery on the third floor displays exhibits on birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, plants, and fungi native to the Great Lakes. There are taxidermy specimens, exhibits on habitats, and displays about regional environmental problems. A mastodon trackway, the largest on display in the world, is part of this exhibit.
• The Anthropology Displays feature exhibits on anthropology, and include artifacts from human cultures around the world.
• The Geology Displays on the fourth floor feature a collection of the several rocks and minerals.

Two galleries display exhibits on "Evolution & Health" and archaeological research work in the U-M Museum of Archaeological Anthropology. The first floor Rotunda Lobby currently displays "The Invisible World of Mites".