Museum

The museum is a stone building found in all the games, except for, and the Player's Town branch of the Farway Museum. It is an establishment for the collection and display of insects, fish, paintings, and fossils. The curator, an owl named Blathers, will have to be woken up during the day, but is always awake at night. Blathers is present in the main room all day, every day. Celeste, Blathers' sister, resides in the Observatory, the second floor of the museum. She will also have to be woken up during the day, but she denies the fact that she was sleeping, claiming that she was just resting her eyes. Like her brother, she is available all day and night. Upon donating every possible specimen to the Museum, the player will be awarded a Museum Model.

In Wild World and City Folk, Celeste runs the Observatory on the second floor. Here, the player can create custom constellations by connecting between stars with lines. On the basement floor is The Roost, a small café run by Brewster. Occasionally, villagers and special characters will drink coffee at The Roost's bar (such as Kapp'n, Pelly, or Phyllis). K.K. Slider will perform in The Roost on Saturday nights. In City Folk, Brewster will also store a player's Gyroids.

In New Leaf, the Museum no longer features the Observatory or The Roost. At the beginning of the game, the Museum consists of only a single floor, although a second story can be constructed as a public works project and The Roost Cafe can also be built as a public works project, though as its own building outside of the museum. With this expansion, Celeste will operate a gift shop selling unique furniture, tools, wallpaper and carpets, and will also rent out four different exhibition spaces for 10,000 Bells each. The second floor also contains lockers that can access a player's storage space. Outside the entrance to the Museum is a board that lists every exhibit and their donors, and the paintings section has been expanded to encompass sculptures as well.

In New Horizons, the Museum is no longer present when a town is created, instead being built as an upgrade from Blathers' tent after a total of 20 items have been donated. Celeste no longer appears in the museum, instead being an occasional visitor to the town.

Animal Crossing
The Museum, although absent in, makes its debut in , 's enhanced GameCube port. At the museum, the player can donate any bugs, fish, fossils, or paintings that they find. In the case of fossils, however, the player must send any unidentified fossils to the Farway Museum, as Blathers, the Museum owner, is unable to identify fossils himself. For each donation, the Museum is divided into various sections pertaining to whatever category the donation falls under, either as bugs, fish, fossils, or paintings. Once the player donates everything for one section, Blathers will congratulate the player for completing it. On the other hand, if everything from every exhibit is donated, than the player will receive a Museum Model to congratulate their hard work.

The Bug exhibit is one room. At the back of the room, there are around five to seven summer themed trees that have beetles and cicadas on them, once each are donated. In the middle, there is a lot of flowers, a pond and a tree, containing ladybugs and butterflies when they are donated. At the bottom area there is a pile of leaves, a big rock and a single tree that contain grasshoppers, crickets, and a few other bugs. If the player donates a Mosquito or a Cockroach, both will be seen moving freely in the exhibit, either flying around or scuttling around the floor, respectively.

The Fish exhibit is relatively small compared for future installments, as it is only one room containing six tanks for pond, river and freshwater fish. If a Frog is donated, it can be seen croaking on top of a lily pad in the topmost tank to the right. In the very back of the exhibit, there is one big tank containing seawater fish.

The painting exhibit is one room, containing many aisles of paintings. The pathway to each row of paintings curves and twists.

The fossil exhibit is, once again, in one room. The larger fossils, such as the T-Rex, are placed haphazardly and in nonlinear lines. The smaller fossils, such as amber and an ammonite, are in a line near the entrance.

Animal Crossing: Wild World
The Museum returns in, with several changes being added. The Museum now features stairways leading to an Observatory and a cafe known as The Roost, respectively. In addition, Blathers is now able to identify fossils himself, due to the Farway Museum being absent in this game. Other than these new additions, the museum in Wild World has the same function as.

The bug exhibits are split into two rooms. Butterflies are in the first room, and so are all the bugs that live on palm trees, under rocks, and in the ground. Pondskaters will also appear in this room. All grass-bound bugs and bugs that live on trees are in the second room. The cockroach, once donated, skitters on the floor of the first room.

The fish section divides into two rooms. All river, pond, lake, and waterfall fish are kept in two tanks within the first room, while all ocean fish are kept in one large tank in the second room located to the north of the first.

The painting exhibit is almost the same as in, except there are more twists and turns.

The fossil exhibit contains two rooms, featuring smaller fossils in both rooms.

Animal Crossing: City Folk
The Museum appears once again in, featuring redesigned exhibits from its predecessor. Other than this, no major changes are made.

The bug exhibit is one big room divided into three levels. The first level has all the butterflies, located near the entrance with insects that can be found near or in water. The second level, which is connected to the first by a small slope, is set up like a small wooded area. The rafflesia, a large flower that appears in a town when there are too many weeds, is next to the slope. The third level, which is also connected by a small slope to the second level, is open planned, with trees surrounding the wall at the top of the room with a few heat lamps.

The fish exhibit is one large room. Most ocean fish, including the hammerhead shark, are found in a very large tank that spans across the entire northern part of the room. Small ocean fish, like the surgeonfish, are kept in a long, tube-shaped tank in the southeast corner of the room. Most small river fish, like the guppy, are in the southwest corner of the room in a similar tank. All other river, pond, lake, and waterfall fish, like the carp and char, are kept in the middle of the room in two tanks.

The paintings exhibit is split up into two rooms; a main room and a back room. Most paintings are displayed in the main room. In the back room, there is a single row of paintings along the wall of the room. The rope divider in the middle of the room guards the Famous Painting once it is donated.

The fossil exhibit of the museum is composed of two rooms and floors. Smaller fossils are kept upstairs in the second room.

Animal Crossing: New Leaf
The Museum returns once more in, being given an extensive makeover from previous installments. For instance, the player can now donate multiple items at once, although they will not get a reaction from Blathers if this is done. The Observatory is also removed from this installment, being replaced by the Museum Shop once the player donates multiple items to the museum. Furthermore, each exhibit gives more specific details on a specific item on display, replacing Blathers' monologues in previous games, although City Folk already gave descriptions to completed Fossils.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons


The Museum returns once again in. However, it is not available from the start. First, the player need to donate 5 creatures to Tom Nook in the Resident Services. Once they have done so, Tom Nook will get a call from Blathers to set up the tent. Soon after, he gives the tent to the player, who then needs to place it somewhere on the island. The next day, Blathers will have set up a tent on the spot chosen by the player. The player will have to donate 15 more items in order for the museum to be built. The museum will be opened in two days (including the construction in the next day). This new museum initially has three sections (for fish, bugs, and fossils), but once the player buys an authentic piece of art from Redd and shows it to Blathers, an art exhibit will be constructed over the course of the next day, opening the day after. Like in, multiple items can be donated, and multiple fossils assessed, at once. The art wing was not initially available in New Horizons, but rather was first implemented in the version 1.2.0 update on April 23, 2020.

The Museum additionally receives a radical redesign, being much more elaborate and closer in style to real-life western museums compared to earlier incarnations. Additionally, the lobby no longer carries over the simplistic design that had been in place since, instead featuring a new interior based more closely on that of antiquated urban institutional centers.

The fossil exhibit is expanded to three rooms, with smaller, non-tetrapod fossils in the first room, dinosaurs and other pre-Cenozoic land animals in the second, and Cenozoic fossils in the last. Furthermore, lines are drawn on the floor between fossils which roughly correspond to an evolutionary tree, culminating in a glass display showing how these fossils represent the evolutionary ancestry of the game's various villager species, with an empty spot for the player to stand in to complete the image (doing so is purely cosmetic).