Presenting Case

Presenting Case is on display at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History from 7 September to 8 November 2026. It's a dedicated display case tucked alongside the museum's front desk, and it's where the museum puts on a rotating series of temporary displays and specimens that don't usually make it out of the stores.

If you're not familiar with the museum, it's a proper piece of Oxford history. It opened in 1860 as the world's first purpose-built natural history museum, and the neogothic building itself dates back to the 1850s. Inside, it holds over seven million specimens, including one of the world's most important assemblages of Middle Jurassic dinosaurs and around 400,000 fossils spanning from the Archean to the end of the Pleistocene. It's also home to Megalosaurus bucklandii, the first dinosaur ever to be scientifically described, and the Oxford Dodo.

Because the Presenting Case is right by the front desk, it's an easy thing to stop and look at even if you're just popping in for a quick visit rather than spending the whole afternoon in the galleries. It changes regularly, so what's in there now will be gone by November, and something else will take its place.

Admission is free, and the display runs until 8 November, so there's plenty of time to catch it.