Natural History Museum in Oslo

The fossil known as Ida, an Eocene primate of the species Darwinius masillae, is among the attractions at Norway's oldest and largest museum of natural history. Run by the University of Oslo and called Naturhistorisk museum in Norwegian, it stands in the Tøyen neighbourhood and combines several museums with a botanical garden.

The Zoological Museum displays wildlife from Norway and the rest of the world. The Geological Museum holds research material of more than two million fossils, rock specimens and minerals, and a selection of specimens is on display in both the geological and zoological museums. The Botanical Garden contains some 35,000 plants of 7,500 species, along with two exhibition greenhouses.

The institution grew from the University Botanical Garden, founded near Tøyen Manor in 1814. About a century later, when the university's central Oslo campus had become too small, museums for zoology, botany and geology were added, championed by Waldemar Christofer Brøgger and Nordal Wille. The separate units merged in 1999, and the current name dates from 2005.