Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

National Museum of Natural History

NMNH-2025-02051.jpg

For National Pollinator Week, Learn Why the National Museum of Natural History is Using a State-of-the-Art Conveyor Belt System to Digitize Thousands of Insect Specimens

The ongoing effort captures high-quality images and collection data in seconds, creating an online database of bees, beetles, butterflies and flies

SIA-96-955.jpg

The Smithsonian Curator Who Loved Frogs

As the first female curator of the National Museum of Natural History’s collection of amphibians and reptiles, Doris Cochran shaped herpetology at the museum and beyond

P6134784.jpeg

To Understand a Changing Estuary, Smithsonian Scientists Search for Biodiversity Buried in the Sediment

This past June, researchers congregated at the Smithsonian Marine Station to catalogue the vast diversity of tiny animals living in Florida’s Indian River Lagoon

Wood coll horiz DSC_8767.jpg

How Much Wood Could a Museum Collect? Much More Than a Woodchuck Could

From providing forensic wooden "fingerprints" to insights on structural engineering, the museum’s collection of rare and wonderful lumber is a prized scientific resource

NHB2017-00615.jpg

Fetching Fossils and Unwrapping Mannequins: Here’s What Happens When a Museum Exhibition Closes

In the wrap-up of “Objects of Wonder,” hundreds of the museum’s most treasured specimens are returning to the collection

IMG_4133.JPG

This Volunteer Week, Get to Know the Smithsonian Volunteer Who Meticulously Curated Thousands of Tiny Crustaceans

Vial after vial, and label after label, Sofia Barretto Thomas dedicated her time and careful eye to sorting the thousands of amphipods donated by the late cave biologist John R. Holsinger

In a black and white photo, three women and one man sit together in a room with a large circular window behind them, surrounded by papers.

Honoring the Overlooked Contributions of Women Anthropologists in the National Anthropological Archives

Ongoing research in the Department of Anthropology brings to light historically under recognized contributions of female researchers and staff

A white, fluffy dog stands in front of a brown mural with other dogs

NMNH in Review: Top Discoveries by Museum Scientists in 2023

Indigenous woolly dogs, ground sloth pendants and more headline-grabbing findings by scientists at the National Museum of Natural History

Collections (IZ)_credit Chip Clark, Smithsonian Institution (1).jpg

1.1 Billion Objects and Counting: Inside the Effort to Tally Natural History Specimens Around the Globe

This year, NMNH director Kirk Johnson helped spearhead an effort to add up the collections of the world’s largest museums

A shelf of brown boxes with white bones peeking out of the top has small black beetles crawling all over them.

Meet the Smithsonian’s Spookiest Staffers: Flesh-Eating Beetles

This Halloween season, learn how the National Museum of Natural History’s dermestid beetle colony transforms decaying animal carcasses into spotless skeletons.

IMG_3867.JPG

A Bounty of Butterflies Arrives at the Smithsonian

Entomologist Floyd Shockley drove across the country to pick up a premier butterfly and moth collection

IMG_3920.JPG

In 1904, Theodore Roosevelt Won a Presidential Election…And a Pair of Ostriches

For President’s Day, learn the story behind the giant birds sent to Washington to celebrate Roosevelt’s reelection

image002.jpg

Five Facts About the Smithsonian’s Sprawling Whale Collection That Will Blow Your Mind

This World Whale Day, take a look inside of the National Museum of Natural History’s whale bone repository

IMG_9964.jpeg

2022 in Review: Smithsonian Staff Sifts Through an Ocean of Fossils

Integrating shimmering ammonites, toothy mosasaurs and a massive haul of specimens into the growing National Fossil Collection

Multiple pages of paper adorned with brown and yellow pressed plant specimens sit, one after the other, on a dark gray table-like surface. In the background are two people with purple gloves on.

2022 in Review: The National Herbarium Goes Digital

In May, the museum completed a groundbreaking digitization process that brought nearly four million pressed plants online.

A man wearing a white hard hat, neon vest, dark gray pants and yellow gloves sits in a pit of dark rock. Just below his knees is a boulder with a piece of lighter gray fossil sticking out of the top.

Meet the Smithsonian Director Bringing a Deep Time Perspective to the International Climate Discussion

Kirk Johnson highlights the vital climate context museum collections provide at international COP conferences

Researchers at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History traveled the world and made many new discoveries this year—including 18 new species of pelican spiders. (Nikolai Scharff)

Check Out Some of Our Most Popular Discoveries From 2018

Celebrate the new year with some of our most popular scientific discoveries from 2018.

The newly opened Steinhardt Museum of Natural History at Tel Aviv University preserves and displays Israel’s natural heritage. (David Furth, Smithsonian Institution)

Here’s How the Smithsonian Helped Develop the Middle East’s First Natural History Museum

The Middle East’s first comprehensive natural history museum recently opened with help from the Smithsonian.

Categories
Archive