Museo del Ambar (Dominican Amber Museum)
Location: Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic (61 Calle Duarte)
When to visit: Open 9-6 Monday through Saturday
Cost: Minimal admission fee, approx. $1-3 (USD equivalent)
Time needed: 15-30 minutes
Website: http://ambermuseum.com
Looking for an offbeat attraction that feels like it’s straight out of Jurassic Park? The Dominican Amber Museum has displays of dozens of ancient bugs trapped in amber. It’s slightly spooky but very interesting to see!
Located in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic, the museums offer guests the opportunity to see dozens of objects captured in amber, including ants, termites, cockroaches, scorpions, sticks, and seeds.
Keep reading to see photos and learn about what you’ll see inside this quirky museum!
Intro to Amber + Museum Hours and Cost
Amber is fossilized tree resin that once dripped down a tree, hardened and trapped whatever was inside. Amber is often used in jewelry today, but geologists are way more interested in the way it perfectly preserves objects inside for millions of years.
The Dominican amber on display here dates back to about 25-40 million years ago. It’s hard to even comprehend how old that is!
You may see the Dominican Amber Museum referred to in Spanish as Museo del Ambar. The facility opened in 1982 with the goal of sharing an amber collection that had previously been in storage.
Brandt Ghepart of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History made great efforts to help curate and catalogue the collection, and to make it available for public viewing.
You won’t be able to miss the Amber Museum’s logo, since it looks like Jurassic Park.
The admission fee is the equivalent of a couple U.S. dollars, though it’s often included as part of large group tours of the city.
There’s a gift shop here with plenty of amber jewelry and other objects for sale. If you’re looking for a unique gift or memento from your Dominican trip, spend some time checking out the gift shop for sure.
Dominican Amber Museum Photos
Each item on display at Museo del Ambar has captions in English and Spanish, plus a photo, so that you know what you’re looking at.
The biggest item on display here is a 15-inch lizard from 30 to 40 millions years ago. It’s still preserved exactly as it was! On the other hand, there are tiny objects like termites also on display.
This next one is an interesting artifact. It’s a piece of amber resin that contains water bubbles, part of a leaf, and various small insects. That’s a whole ecosystem inside there!
If you’re visiting Puerto Plata, the Dominican Amber Museum is an interesting place to visit. You will only need 20-30 minutes here to see everything in the small museum.
Puerto Plata is a popular stop for cruise ships in the Caribbean. I visited the town on my Fathom cruise from Miami.
And don’t forget to check out other attractions in town, such as the 27 waterfalls of Damajagua and the Puerto Plata teleferico cable car that goes to the mountain above the city.
Would you be interested to visit the Dominican Amber Museum (Museo del Ambar)?
Quirky, indeed! Who would have ever thought there would be a museum devoted to bugs trapped in amber?
This place isn’t well-marked either, so you’d never know about it if you didn’t look it up ahead of time. It’s a really cool find!