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A coral reef may look like a colorful underwater garden, but these living structures are made by thousands of tiny an...

What unique plants and animals live in this island nation's diverse habitats?
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Find out what lives in the deep sea, coral reef, and continental shelf.

Animals and plants are usually adapted to survive best in particular environments, known as their habitats.

More than four thousand islands—including one big island—make up this nation in the Caribbean Sea.

What's threatening planet Earth and how can we protect it? Find out more in these videos of kids at the Museum.

Most ocean plants and animals live near the shore, on a narrow ribbon of seafloor called the continental shelf.

Found along tropical coastlines, thick mangrove forests were once considered a nuisance, infested with mosquitoes and...

Arctic ice is melting. Coral reefs are disappearing. Sea levels are rising. These events are part of an even bigger p...

The frigid waters of the Arctic and the Antarctic may seem like hostile habitats. But a variety of marine life -- fro...

Growing up in Argentina, Adriana Aquino loved nature, especially the ocean. As a young girl, she wondered what it wou...

Take a world-wide tour of biodiversity with three scientists.

You could travel the globe, but there's only one place you'd find a ruffed lemur: Madagascar. It is an endemic specie...

Far beneath the ocean's surface is a mysterious world of cold temperatures, intense pressure, and almost total darkne...

The seafloor covers more than half of the Earth's surface. Most of the seafloor consists of the flat, expansive abyss...

All animals of the sea depend on plankton, the tiny organisms that drift in the ocean.

Throughout the world's oceans, tiny particles swirl, drift, and fall like snowflakes from the ocean's upper levels.

These creatures have lived in Earth's oceans for over 545 million years!

Compared to the continent of Africa, Madagascar may seem small. But this island, the fourth largest in the world, is...

Many people have seen the beautiful spiral triton trumpet shell. Unfortunately, most people can see these brown and w...

Conservation biologist Ana Luz Porzecanski answers kids' questions.
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An invasive species is a living thing that moves into a new region. Species often become "invasive" as a re...

The electric eel is long and narrow like an eel, but it is actually not an eel at all. In fact, electric eels are pro...

It's easy to see how the starfish got its name -- with their pointed arms, these creatures look like stars fallen to...

Think of giant kelp as the Godzilla of the seaweeds.

With their white bellies and dark backs, dolphins can be found jumping above the water, swimming alongside fishing sh...

Not all spiders spin webs to catch their meals. When night falls in Australia, the white-tailed spider hunts its prey...

Find out more about global warming. How, and why, we should slow it?

Hands-on

Kids took the OLogy Challenge and shared their work with us!

Many animals and plants use color to warn predators to stay away, and the blue ringed octopus is no exception. When t...

Winter brings snow and ice in places like northern Minnesota. But during the same season along Florida's beaches, tem...

For thousands of years, humans have relied on the power of wind to sail across oceans, pump water, and grind grain.

How is the ocean like a layer cake? What creatures live there? And how important is the ocean? Take a dive and find out!

You might think that all mosquitoes are alike, but did you know that there are actually about 2,500 different kinds?...

Although the rosy periwinkle stands only one foot tall, in the world of medicine it's a giant.

Why is Ana fascinated by the rich variety of life on Earth? Find out!
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Our oceans are full of colorful creatures. Find out how animals use color for attraction, communication, and camouflage.

Biodiversity is the rich variety of life on Earth. But why is it important?

Estuaries are places where a river meets the sea. This ever-changing ecosystem is bursting with life. Saltwater from...

Some people may call invertebrates spineless because they lack a backbone or spine! But these amazing creatures are t...

The giant squid is the largest invertebrate, or animal without a backbone, ever to have lived on Earth!

Explore some of the inventive ways that help living things reproduce and their offspring survive.

See how many different plants and animals you can find in this virtual mangrove swamp.

Why are many animal and plant species dying out forever?

When Paula Mikkelsen moved to Florida, she turned a fun hobby into an exciting career. She enjoyed walking along Flor...

What kind of person becomes an ichthyologist, a scientist who studies fish?

Water is a precious resource, and all things need water to survive.

In the wild, ruffed lemurs live in only one place -- the eastern rain forests of Madagascar.

The gremlin-like, endangered aye-aye makes its home in the tropical forests of Madagascar, a large island off the coa...

Since he was a boy, Vladimir Ovtsharenko has been fascinated by nature. Growing up, he loved collecting spiders, beet...

Based on fossils of ancient dragonflies, we know these winged insects have been soaring around for at least 300 milli...

A marine biologist answers kids' questions about how climate change affects life in the ocean.

Chris Raxworthy has been fascinated by all things scaly and slimy since he was a kid. Chris is a herpetologist at the...

Ornithologists, or scientists who study birds, want to prevent the forests of the Pacific Northwest from being choppe...

The St. Vincent parrot makes its home on the tropical island of St. Vincent in the Caribbean. These parrots are cover...

The American crocodile has lived on Earth for millions of years, but today their numbers are rapidly declining becaus...

The Asian elephant is one of the largest land mammals in the world. Some people believe that elephants feel joy and s...

The Tibetan antelope, also known as "chiru," is one of the most beautiful mammals in the world.

California condors are the largest birds in North America. Like all vultures, condors are carrion-eaters. This means...

Tipping the scales at more than 7 pounds, the Goliath is the largest frog in the world. Just two of these frogs weigh...

The hellbender is one of the largest salamanders in North America.

The king cobra is the largest venomous snake in the world. Whether slithering on land, climbing trees, or swimming, i...

The Komodo dragon lumbers through the forest on its thick, stocky legs. It sways its head back and forth, flicking it...

The leatherback is the world's largest turtle. Unlike the bony exterior of other sea turtles, the exterior of the lea...

The mountain gorilla lives high up in the forests of east central Africa.

The whooping crane is known as the tallest bird in North America. This long legged creature has been struggling to su...

It only seems like the world's entire ant population attends your picnics.

Cassava is one tough plant because it can grow in poor and unfertile soil in most tropical environments. Cassava is a...

Have you ever seen pond scum -- that thick, smelly layer of slime floating on the surface of the water? That's probab...

Dinoflagellates are tiny, one-celled organisms that live in oceans and freshwater ponds, rivers, and streams. Some di...

Giant puffballs aren't your typical mushrooms.

Most people know red and black spotted ladybird beetles as friendly insects that are fun to pick up and watch fly awa...

If you looked at the contents of a vacuum cleaner bag with a microscope, you'd probably find millions of tiny creatur...

The Portuguese man-of-war is actually a floating colony of individuals called polyps that are all dependent on each o...

A rotting log is a mighty tasty meal -- if you're a termite. Termites not only eat wood, some kinds live in it, too....

What do we have in common with sharks, bluebirds, lizards, and toads? We are all vertebrates, or animals with backbon...

Some exotic creatures lurk in the polar seas, but perhaps none is more bizarre than the giant sea spider.

For centuries, orange roughy went mostly unnoticed by humans. These fish thrived in the dark, the cold, and the inten...

This large dark bird is unmistakable soaring in the air along the coast.

The snowy egret is a beautiful sight. An adult egret is distinguished by its dark slender beak, long black legs, and...

To try to piece together how organisms are related, scientists use cladistics.

Are these rare and colorful creatures flowering plants or animals?

Vietnam is a country of amazing biodiversity, including many rare and unusual species. One fascinating example is the...

Most mammals that live on land use their legs to get around. But the white-handed gibbon relies mostly on its arms. U...

There are more than 250 kinds of vipers, a family of poisonous snakes. The largest of all is the gabon viper.

New Caledonia, a tiny island east of Australia, is the only place where an unusual bird called the kagu is found. Abo...

This beautiful tortoise lives in the deserts of Madagascar, an island off the coast of Africa. This reptile gets its...

Explore this family tree of living things on Earth.

When she was a kid, Ana explored the landscapes of rural Uruguay and Brazil and the many plants and animals that live...

Find out about Earth's climate, its consequences, and what we can do.

Test your knowledge about the major groups of life on Earth.

Fossils are the key to understanding life in the past.

Its brow horns and snout horn inspired this dinosaur's name, which means "three-horned face."

About 80 million years ago, during the Late Cretaceous, this armored plant-eater roamed the Gobi Desert in Central Asia.

Limestone is made up of fossils. After small marine animals die, their shells and skeletons build up on the ocean floor.

In the 1940s, paleontologists from the American Museum of Natural History discovered rich fossil beds in the high des...

The name Jurassic conjures images of tremendous dinosaurs roaming the Earth.

Earth was a very different place at the beginning of the Triassic. All of Earth's continents were combined into one s...

Confuciusornis is the earliest-known toothless, beaked bird.

Effigia looks just like a dinosaur. It particularly looks a lot like bird-like dinosaurs called ornithomimids, or ost...

The first vertebrates to fly took to the skies about 215 million years ago. These creatures were neither birds nor ba...

One look at Redondasaurus, and you might think it's a crocodile. After all, it has a similar long, armored body, with...

When the famous Tyrannosaurus rex roamed North America, a very similar dinosaur was living on the other side of the E...

Sterling was always fascinated by nature, ancient history, and archaeology. Since he was 15 years old, he has spent e...

When you ride in a car, watch your favorite television show, or take a hot shower, you're most likely using fossil fu...

Many famous dinosaurs, such as T. rex and Triceratops, first appeared in the Cretaceous Period.

Can you match these marine animals with their baby pictures?

Take a deep breath and exhale slowly. Your body just released carbon dioxide, a colorless gas that's essential to lif...

Museum scientists answer kids' questions!

One of the earlier dinosaurs to appear on Earth was Coelophysis. It was a small, but skilled hunter that lived during...

Of all the dinosaurs to roam the Earth, the largest ones belonged to a group called sauropods- huge plant-eating dino...

How do your fossil-sorting skills stack up? Put them to the test with this kid-friendly online puzzle.