Pakistan Museum of Natural History

Pakistan Museum of Natural History, established in 1976, is a public natural history museum situated in Islamabad, the federal capital of Pakistan. It has exhibits and galleries which display and provide information about the ecology, geology and palaeontology of the country. Currently, the museum houses a collection of over 300,000 objects. The museum also acts as a research center and works closely with the Lok Virsa Museum. The museum is open to public everyday, except for Friday, from 10 am to 5 pm. The museum is managed by the Pakistan Science Foundation, under the Ministry of Science and Technology.Exhibits and galleriesBiological gallery - displays and discusses wild flora and fauna, portrayed in their respective habitats.Ecological gallery - an educational section where ecological cycles, habitats and environmental problems are discussed through visuals and audios.Gemstones gallery - shows a variety of gems in-the-raw as well as cut and polished forms.Palaeontology gallery - displays fossils along with their studies. Anthropology is also discussed through paintings and writings, including a skull of Australopithecus. Wall paintings depict the pre-historic era.Tethys gallery - provides information about oceanology, petrology, pedology and mineralogy of Pakistan. It displays a three-dimensional diorama of seascapes as well as a skeleton of a whale. Different aspects of the salt Range are also studied in detail.Virtual Orientation Gallery - it allows visitors to take virtual tours of all the above galleries without actually walking around the entire museum. This new gallery was introduced in 2016.