Building The 1990 building, which encloses the previous museum building, was the largest pyramid in the Southern Hemisphere. It had a floor space of 5000 m2, is 45 by 52 metres wide and 27 metres high.
Observatory The museum observatory, the only public observatory in Southland, was operated by members of the
Southland Astronomical Society, with school groups often visiting.
Tuatara The tuatarium facility, built in 1974 and expanded to 200 m2 in 1990, houses over 50 live, individual
tuatara ranging from new babies to the famous
Henry. Henry, who joined the museum in 1970, is thought to have been born around the year 1900, and holds the world record for the tuatara kept longest in captivity. Henry mated for the first time in 2009. The tuatara breed regularly every two years, and from 1989 to 1995 produced eggs annually. A new acrylic roof that allowed ultraviolet light through to the tuatara has contributed to 100% egg hatching success and 100% survival success since installation. The tuatara were relocated in February 2023 in preparation for the demolition of the building. During this demolition of the building in 2024, four baby tuatara were found living in their former enclosure, by a contractor working on the demolition. They were likely to have been missed as eggs.
Galleries The museum's
Māori Gallery emphasised the everyday aspects of pre-contact life in
Murihiku/(
Southland). This included the processes of
adze making,
fishing using bone and stone lures, and
musical instruments. The natural history gallery displayed rare and endangered species such as the
kākāpō and
kiwi, as well as subfossil bones of extinct birds such as
moa. This gallery also covered subjects such as
geology and sea life. "Beyond the Roaring 40's Gallery" interpreted the unique and vulnerable
subantarctic themes and was developed utilising both museum and
Department of Conservation expertise. A fossil forest of
petrified wood exists at
Curio Bay on the southeast coast of Southland. A reconstruction of this, where visitors can walk among the stumps and tree sections of petrified wood 130 million years old, could be found in front of the museum along with two-metre bronze tuatara sculpture.
Art The art galleries featured regular contemporary and historical art exhibitions, both travelling shows and works from permanent collections, often with a regional emphasis which includes
Stewart Island and the
Subantarctic Islands. The museum has a significant collection of art, photography, ceramics and craft; of special note is the work by
William Hodges "A Maori before a waterfall in Dusky Bay " (1773), and Te Mauri, the large
pounamu boulder that travelled to America as part of the
Te Maori Exhibition in 1984. ==Exhibitions==