Language of Color

Learn about the diverse palette that makes up the natural world today. Color us excited.

From the pocket mouse to the Pacific octopus, animals display color and perceive it in vastly different ways. Language of Color, a new exhibition from the Harvard Museum of Natural History will explore how color is produced and how and why color variation has evolved in a wide variety of animals.

Visitors will investigate the underlying mechanisms that create color and the complex and varied ways that animals use it to fool predators or attract a mate. They will examine how different animals “see” color in the world, and learn how and why many can see large parts of the spectrum imperceptible to our own species