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National Museum of Natural History

State shells pictured in a circular arrangement against a gray background.

New Smithsonian Exhibition to Showcase Objects From All 50 States

National Museum of Natural History invites visitors to celebrate and reflect on national connections represented in the museum’s 148 million specimens and objects

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

Yellow and white lichens are pictured against a back background on a tree branch.

Meet the Smithsonian Fellow Alumni Helping to Save the Planet

This Earth Day, learn about early-career researchers who are tackling issues from green technology to lichen biodiversity and coral rehabilitation

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Celebrate Planets Near and Far This April

Learn more about the diversity of life on Earth, missions to Mars and much more this month at the National Museum of Natural History

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Discover Why Animals Need the Dark and Other Natural History Programs This April

Stream programs about the ever-brightening sky, the dawn of technology and visit the National Museum of Natural History for a book signing.

Close-up of a black and yellow hornet preserved on a pin

What Mummified Shrews and Giant Hornets Reveal About Biodiversity

Celebrate Earth Day by revisiting stories about the museum’s research on a bevy of bizarre and wonderful creatures

Mangroves line a channel connecting the Belize River to the coastal lagoon system. These trees are hundreds of years old and provide important habitat to both terrestrial and marine species. (Steve Canty, Smithsonian Marine Station)

Together, We Can Save the Mangroves

Scientists hope to save mangroves with global collaboration.

Smithsonian paleobiologist Scott Wing digs for plant fossils in Wyoming. (Tom Nash)

Old Fossils, New Meanings: Smithsonian Exhibit Explores the History of Life and What it Means for Our Future

For Earth Day, Smithsonian paleobiologist Scott Wing reminds us that we can look to the fossil record to better understand how ecosystems and organisms today respond to human-caused global changes.

Will the Blue Marble Stay Blue? This famous Earth photo, known as The Blue Marble, was taken on December 7, 1972 by astronauts on the Apollo 17 spacecraft – the last manned lunar mission that provided humans with such an opportunity. Beautiful and fragile, the Blue Marble became a symbol of the environmental movement and part of the official Earth Day flag (Photo credit: NASA).

This Earth Day, the Planet’s Health is Your Health

We are now living in a highly connected world. Human health threats anywhere can have impacts everywhere. However, we can only be as healthy as the global ecosystem in which we live and on which we depend. This is the main message of Planetary Health--an evolving discipline of enormous scope, where human health is inseparable from the state of Earth systems.

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