Blog Post
The Museum's Giant Squid
The Museum has one of the few specimens of Architeuthis kirkii housed in a museum in North America, says Curator Neil H. Landman, who studies fossil and living invertebrates in the Division of Paleontology.
Behind the Scenes at the Museum
Take a peek at the Museum's collections, exhibitions, and some of the everyday—and extraordinary—things that happen behind the scenes.
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Nabokov's Type
Author Vladimir Nabokov was devoted to lepidopterology, the study of moths and butterflies.
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From the Archives: Exploring
A boy uses a microscope in the Museum's Natural Science Center for Young People in 1969.
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Graduate Study at the Museum
Home to the Richard Gilder Graduate School, the Museum is the first museum in the Western Hemisphere to grant the Ph.D. degree.
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VideoInside the Collections: Artifacts from the Pacific Northwest Coast
While highlights from the Museum's collection of artifacts from the Pacific Northwest Coast are on display in the Hall of Northwest Coast Indians, more than 13,000 objects are kept in storage in the Division of Anthropology.
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A T. Rex Teeth Cleaning
Using a lift in the Hall of Saurischian Dinosaurs, a staff member reaches into the iconic dinosaur's jaw.
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From the Archives: Dinosaur Tracks
Museum staff install sauropod dinosaur tracks from Texas in what was then the Jurassic Dinosaur Hall in 1952.
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Crafting Jellyfish
Models of the crystal jelly, shown at 10 times life size, were crafted in the Exhibition Studio for Creatures of Light.
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From the Archives: Grand Canyon
Artist Charles Chapman painted the background for the mountain lion diorama in the Hall of North American Mammals, which features the Grand Canyon, in 1941.
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Dinoflagellate
These microscopic marine organisms have puzzled scientists for centuries.
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From the Archives: Bison Diorama
A Museum staff member prepares a model diorama for one of the iconic scenes in the Hall of North American Mammals in 1939.
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Ammonite Collection
Ammonites are an extinct type of shelled mollusk that’s closely related to modern-day nautiluses and squids.
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VideoRepainting Salmon in the Brown Bear Diorama
This iconic diorama in the Bernard Family Hall of North American Mammals features a rare non-mammalian star: the salmon, caught by an otter and poached by two hungry bears.
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Ponyfish Model
A Museum artist works on a model of a male golden ponyfish for the exhibition Creatures of Light.
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Inside the Ichthyology Collection
The Museum's Ichthyology Collection includes approximately 2 million specimens.
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From the Archives: Mastodon
Museum staff move a skeleton of a mastodon, a species that disappeared 10,000 years ago as part of a mass extinction of large mammals in North America.