page_title: Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History
section_title: Exhibits
hierarchical_section_title: Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History / Exhibits
caption_attribution_description: Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History, Pacific Grove, California, USA.
context_page_description: The Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History is a museum of natural history located near the Monterey Bay Aquarium in Pacific Grove, California, United States. The museum is a living field guide of the California Central Coast showcasing local native plants, animals, geology, and cultural histories.
  The museum opened its doors in 1883 among the first wave of natural history museums established in America. Naturalists of this era, such as John Muir and Louis Agassiz, began a national tradition of hands-on science education and nature preservation.
  The museum is accredited with the American Alliance of Museums.
context_section_description: The museum's exhibits provide a field guide of the California Central Coast: birds and wildlife, plants, geology and cultural richness. The museum highlights unique features of the California Central Coast.
  Guests to the museum are greeted by "Sandy," a life-size sculpture of an adult female gray whale designed and created by artist Larry Foster. The whale was purchased in 1982 through a creative community fund raising campaign with the assistance of the local American Cetacean Society and is dedicated to the Children of Monterey County.
  The museum's collection of birds from Monterey County, California features over 400 bird specimens on display, including local highlights such as the California condor and nationally significant bird specimens such as the extinct passenger pigeon.
  Pacific Grove is the largest public monarch butterfly overwintering site in Monterey County. From Thanksgiving to Valentine's Day, the monarchs cluster and fly about Pacific Grove's Monarch Grove Sanctuary. The museum has an exhibition of the monarch's life cycle and endangered migration. The museum monarch volunteers also enhance monarch viewing at the sanctuary during the overwintering season providing viewing scopes and interpretation.
  The museum's backyard features over 100 plant species native to Monterey County arranged into five bioregions; coastal scrub, chaparral, mixed oak woodlands, butterfly host and nectar plants, and ethnobotany.
caption: Interior of the Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "", "Image Make": "SONY", "Image Model": "DSC-H55", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Picasa", "Image DateTime": "2012:06:13 08:37:51", "Image Artist": "Picasa", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "282", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 51, 48, 48, 0, 0, 2, 0, 2, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "10926", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "7290", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/20", "EXIF FNumber": "7/2", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "400", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2012:04:18 15:24:24", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2012:04:18 15:24:24", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "29/8", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "17/4", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "4320", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3240", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "4320", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "3240", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "10778", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF ImageUniqueID": "3c0cf06b1b83ff49ca3ead6528bd8552"}