National Museum of Natural History

A man in a grey short sits in a lab setting, in front of a microscope and a computer screen.

Meet the National Museum of Natural History Volunteer Preserving Prehistory One Microfossil at a Time

Carlos Savignano is part of a dedicated group of FossiLab volunteers preparing Smithsonian fossils for display and future research

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Meet the Scientist Using Micro-CT Scans to Explore Big Questions About Evolution

Corinthia Black studies the anatomical features of fishes and spiders to understand how life on Earth takes shape

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How a 162-Year-Old Specimen Helped Prove the Existence of an ‘Incredulous’ Lizard Species

A serendipitous find in the National Museum of Natural History’s collections yielded just the second known specimen of a mysterious Cuban anole

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How Do You Clean an 11-Ton Elephant? One Brushstroke at a Time

The National Museum of Natural History recently spruced up its iconic African elephant mount, which has greeted visitors since 1959

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15 Years Later, the National Museum of Natural History Is Still Asking What It Means to Be Human

The museum’s groundbreaking Hall of Human Origins centers around the adaptations that set early humans apart

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Smithsonian Scientists Discover That Traditional Agricultural Practices in the Amazon Helped Yield an Enduring Crop Clone

Genetic analyses and interviews with Indigenous farmers revealed that most manioc crops resemble each other across time and space

A circular rock is cut in half against a black background, revealing the plant material fossilized inside.

Meet the Scientist Studying 'Fossil Snapshots' of Ancient Insect Life

Paleobiologist Scott Lakeram analyzes 300-million-year-old coal ball fossils to reveal prehistoric plant-insect interactions frozen in time

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National Museum of Natural History Scientists Discover That Ancient Insects Perfected Their Plant Palates 165 Million Years Ago

The findings reveal that insects developed modern patterns of herbivory long before flowering plants flourished, upending a long-held hypothesis

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This Invasive Species Awareness Week, Learn How Museum Researchers Track the Rogue Wildlife Infiltrating American Ecosystems

From a beautiful fish that’s eating the Caribbean to a tiny bivalve with a huge impact, North America’s most notorious introduced species have reshaped the continent’s ecosystems

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