This flag is a symbol of both a specific expedition -- to the Gobi Desert in Mongolia in the 1920s -- and of all the expeditions the American Museum of Natural History has taken and continues to take. The expedition to the Gobi Desert, which made news all over the world, was led by Roy Chapman Andrews, a mammalogist at the Museum from 1906 to 1934, and director of the Museum from 1934 to 1941. In addition to dozens of scientists and assistants, the expedition also included some 125 camels. The flag was mounted on the lead car in the expedition, and was tattered in a desert storm that sandblasted the car windshields so badly that they needed to be removed the next day in order to see.

The 1920s Gobi expedition, called the Central Asiatic Expedition, did not accomplish what it had originally set as its mission, to discover evidence of the origins of humankind. But it did discover something equally important: the first dinosaur eggs ever identified. Moreover, the expedition made a thorough zoological, geological, and archaeological survey of the region, which the team completely mapped. Because of these enormous achievements, as well as dozens of other major finds, this expedition is among the most significant the Museum has undertaken.

Expeditions continue to be an integral part of the work done at the Museum, and they number more than 100 every year. Since 1990 a new expedition to the Gobi Desert, undertaken in collaboration with the Mongolian Academy of Sciences, has been revisiting sites examined by the Central Asiatic Expedition as well as new areas. This expedition has yielded several important fossil finds, including Mononykus, an early bird that documents the evolutionary transition between carnivorous dinosaurs and modern birds, and a truly spectacular find, a dinosaur embryo. In 1993 an expedition team discovered a site called Ukhaa Tolgod. This proved to be one of the world's richest sources of vertebrate fossils from the end of the age of dinosaurs.

The Gobi Flag thus stands not simply for the achievements of a single expedition, but for the quest for knowledge, insight, and understanding that is the impetus for all expeditions, and informs all of the Museum's activities, both in the public eye and behind the scenes.