The original museum was an exhibit oriented facility established in 1885 and funded by a grant from university founder and benefactor Paul Tulane. Currently the museum is administered through the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Tulane University.

The Tulane University Museum of Natural History is a private, non-profit zoological research museum comprising collections of invertebrates (primarily freshwater molluscs and decapod crustaceans), fishes, amphibians and reptiles (herpetology), birds, mammals and vertebrate fossils. The Museum is currently administered through the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (EEB). Henry L. Bart, Jr., Associate Professor of EEB is the Museum Director.