Tūhura Otago Museum

Tūhura Otago Museum, established in 1868, offers a wide range of exhibits covering natural science, humanities, and Māori culture. Its interactive science center features a tropical rainforest butterfly house, providing engaging experiences for visitors of all ages. The museum is located at 419 Great King Street, Dunedin, New Zealand, and is open daily from 10am to 5pm. Admission is free, and facilities include wheelchair access, a café, and a museum shop. For more information, visit their official website at https://otagomuseum.nz/.

Planning your visit

Tūhura Otago Museum in Dunedin covers natural science, human history and Māori and Pacific culture, and its southern setting gives it material other museums lack — subantarctic wildlife, the geology of the Otago region, and one of the significant collections of moa remains, the giant flightless birds hunted to extinction within a few centuries of Polynesian settlement.

The Māori and Pacific galleries are strong, developed with local iwi, and the museum's name change to include Tūhura reflects that relationship.

The interactive science centre is separately ticketed and is the part families come for, with the tropical butterfly house its centrepiece — a heated glasshouse with hundreds of free-flying butterflies, which in Dunedin's climate is a startling contrast to the weather outside.

General admission to the main galleries is free; the science centre and butterfly house carry a charge.

The museum sits near the University of Otago in a city small enough to walk. Bookable options include gallery passes and science centre passes, and deciding which you want before arriving simplifies ticketing. Current availability is listed below.