Extreme Mammals

May 16, 2009 — January 3, 2010

Traveling

demonstration

With Extreme Mammals: The Biggest, Smallest, and Most Amazing Mammals of All Time, the American Museum of Natural History explores the surprising and often extraordinary world of extinct and living mammals.

Featuring spectacular fossils and other specimens from the Museum's collections, vivid reconstructions, and live animals, the exhibition examines the ancestry and evolution of numerous species, ranging from huge to tiny, from speedy to sloth-like, and displays animals with over-sized claws, fangs, snouts, and horns.

Through the use of dynamic media displays, animated computer interactives, hands-on activities, touchable fossils, casts, taxidermy specimens, and a colony of live sugar gliders—extreme marsupials from Australia—the exhibition will highlight distinctive mammalian qualities and illuminate the shared ancestry that unites these diverse creatures.

The exhibition is divided into nine sections—Introduction, What is a Mammal?, What is Extreme?, Head to Tail, Reproduction, Mammals in Motion, Extreme Climates, Extreme Isolation, and Extreme Extinction—and offers extensive detail on the evolutionary history and great family tree of mammals.

Meet your Relatives What is a Mammal? What is Extreme? Extreme Bodies Moving Bodies Extreme Stories Extreme Extinction About the Exhibition Meet the Curator Collaborators Resources For Educators: Extreme Mammals

Extreme Mammals is organized by the American Museum of Natural History, New York, in collaboration with the California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco; Canadian Museum of Nature, Ottawa, Canada; and Cleveland Museum of Natural History.
 
Major funding for Extreme Mammals has been provided by the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Endowment Fund.
 
Additional generous support for Extreme Mammals has been provided by the Bill and Ann Ziff Foundation and Harlan B. Levine, MD and Marshall P. Levine.