Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales

Once on the city's outskirts, the barrio of Caballito gets fairly few tourists, but its largest open space, heavily used Parque Centenario, is a good area for visitors to see an unadorned but gradually gentrifying neighborhood that's popular with urban homesteaders. The park's matural history museum, housing one of the country's largest and best maintained natural history collections, veers between the traditional stuff-in-glass-cases approach and more sophisticated exhibits that provide ecological, historical, and cultural context. Dating from 1937, its equally impressive quarters are only a third the size of the original grandiose project, but include decorative details such as bas-relief spider webs around the main entrance, and sculped owls flanking the upper windows.

The main floor contains exhibits on geology and paleontology (including a reconstruction of the massive Patagonian specimens Giganotosaurus carolini, the worlds largest carnivorous dinosaur, and the herbacious Argentinosaurus huinculensis, whose neck alone measures about 12 meters. The second floor stresses mostly South American mammals (including marine mammals), comparative anatomy, amphibians and reptiles, birds, arthropods, and botany.

The Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales Bernardino Rivadavia (Angel Gallardo 490, tel./faxx 011/4982-1154, www.macn.secyt.gov.ar, US$.60 for visitors seven and older) is open 2—7 p.m. daily. It's about equidistant from the Malabia and Angel Gallardo stations on Subte Línea B.