The building that houses the museum, located on Arkadiankatu and Pohjoinen Rautatiekatu in central Helsinki, was built in 1913.

It was originally built for the Alexander Lyceum, a Russian-speaking cadet school, where the pupils were distinguished by their military-type uniforms.

Its first collections were based on donations to the University of Helsinki from a private society called Societas pro Fauna et Flora.

[2] Though the species is considered by many to be the most dangerous of the venomous recluse spiders, there has been only one minor, non-fatal biting incident at the museum thus far.

While ecologist Veikko Huhta theorized that the Chilean recluse first arrived in fruit shipments from Argentina, museum senior curator Jyrki Muona offers the alternative explanation that the spider arrived in wood chips used for a live rodent enclosure.