Identification Day

The Museum celebrates natural history collections by inviting visitors to bring in their own specimens for our annual Identification Day. Get an up-close look at specimens from the Museum’s rarely seen collections, while scientists attempt to identify your discoveries.  

Before you come to Identification Day, here are a few tips that will help scientists identify your specimens.

New This Year

In conjunction with the special exhibition, T. rex: The Ultimate Predator, scientists will bring out some of their most predatory species from saltwater crocodiles to birds of prey, an elephant sea skull and giant invasive cane toads. You may even run into a tyrannosaur relative or two!

Resources for Educators

• Educational Materials
  • Nature Explorations
    • No Matter what the weather or season, you can explore nature with these 11 challenges. See just how good your observation skills are!
  • Dinosaurs: Activities and Lesson Plans
    • Resources to help students understand everything from basic dinosaur biology and evolution, to the tools and methods of modern paleontology
• If you’d like to bring your group or class to Identification Day, please email publicprograms@amnh.org with the subject line “Identification Day Group” with a request for advanced tickets.

Major funding for T. rex: The Ultimate Predator provided by the Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Endowment Fund.

Generous support also provided by:
Dana and Virginia Randt
Chase Private Client

Virtual reality experience created in collaboration with HTC VIVE.