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National Museum of Natural History

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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

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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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Meet Sylvia Earle, the Trailblazing Marine Biologist Who Has Spent Her Career Giving Algae Their Long-Deserved Due

For International Women and Girls in Science Day, the museum’s Ocean Portal spoke with “Her Deepness” about science, seaweed and the planet’s future

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This February, Meet the Women Transforming Science at the National Museum of Natural History

Mark your calendar for the Mother Tongue Film Festival and events covering everything from odd oceanic couples to resilient deer

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Top Discoveries at the National Museum of Natural History in 2024

Fungus-farming ants, fossilized footprints and a prehistoric critter named after a Muppet are just a few of the year’s most notable findings

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Newly Described Fossil From Wyoming Sheds Light on When Frogs and Toads Lost Their Teeth

A fragment of upper jaw fossil from the Early Cretaceous is among the oldest examples of a toothless amphibian in the fossil record

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To Bridge Heritage and Science, the Smithsonian’s Inclusive Education Programs Empower Learners Through Culture and Community

Through Indigenous weaving workshops and environmental science projects, the Smithsonian engages in co-learning projects to support culturally responsive education

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After 50 Years, Scientists Still Love Lucy

Paleoanthropologists have learned a lot about Lucy, the world’s most famous hominin fossil, since she was discovered in 1974. And her fossils are still yielding new insights

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To Understand How Species Evolve, Scientists Flock to Where Charismatic Birds Intermingle

For decades, researchers have explored a region in Panama that serves as a “manakin melting pot”

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Scientists at the National Museum of Natural History Discover Two Squirrel Species Long Obscured by Mistaken Identities

Using a variety of techniques, the researchers realized that two subspecies of squirrels from Southeast Asia were actually unique species in their own right

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The Murder Mystery Linking a Bird Specimen at the National Museum of Natural History to the Mysterious Death of an Arctic Explorer

In 1871, a naturalist aboard the U.S.S. Polaris collected scientific specimens — and possibly poisoned the ship’s captain

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Meet the Scientist Decoding Human History in South America Through Giant Ground Sloth Fossils

Thaís Pansani examines the marks humans left on megafauna bones to determine when people arrived in South America and how they interacted with giant mammals

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The Name Game: A 'Celebrity' Cephalopod Specimen Correctly Identified More Than 80 Years After Discovery

Collected by the iconic American writer John Steinbeck, the octopus has received a number of scientific monikers

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Our Planet On the Big Screen: New Museum Exhibition Explores Ever-Changing Earth from Space and on the Ground

The Smithsonian partners with NASA to present the Earth Information Center, a larger-than-life display that visualizes interconnected changes on the planet

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Fearsome Flies: Meet the Scientist Studying the Top Predators in the Insect World

Entomologist Torsten Dikow, a leading expert on assassin flies, is working to connect a global community of researchers through the democratization of insect science

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Pawpaw-Palooza: The Inside Scoop on North America’s Taste of the Tropics

The strange plant is ingrained in American history and well-represented in the museum’s herbarium and gardens

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