North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences

North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences Review

At over 200,000 square feet, this museum is the largest of its kind in the Southeast. Exhibits and dioramas celebrate the incredible diversity of species in the state's various regions. There are enough live animals and insects—including butterflies, snakes, and a two-toed sloth—to qualify as a midsize zoo. Rare whale skeletons are also on display. The pièce de résistance, however, is the "Terror of the South" exhibit, featuring the dinosaur skeleton of "Acro," a giant carnivore that lived in the region 110 million years ago. The impressive bones belong to the world's only discovered acrocanthosaurus dinosaur. In the Nature Research Center, where visitors can have live conversations with scientists.