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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

Mosquitoes are more than blood-sucking menaces. They also pollinate flowers, have intricate sex lives and eat other disease-carrying mosquitoes. (Lawrence Reeves)

The Secret Lives of Mosquitoes, the World’s Most Hated Insects

While some are a nuisance, others working as nighttime pollinators may be critically important to a functioning ecosystem

The National Museum of Natural History’s 146 million objects and specimens are studied by researchers worldwide who are looking to understand all aspects of the natural world. (Chip Clark, Smithsonian)

How Museum Collections Advance Knowledge of Human Health

The National Museum of Natural History's collections are important sources of information for scientific research on health and medicine.

The Smithsonian’s National Mosquito Collection has about 1.9 million specimens from around the world that researchers use to study diseases like malaria. (Paul Fetters for the Smithsonian)

Get to Know the Scientist in Charge of Smithsonian’s 1.9 Million Mosquitoes

We caught up with Dr. Yvonne Linton to talk about what it’s like managing the Smithsonian's almost 2 million mosquito specimens and trying to determine ones are most dangerous to people.

A drawer of pinned adult mosquitoes from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History’s National Mosquito Collection. The specimens shown here were digitized recently. Meaning, their bionomic information is databased and individual specimens are cataloged. (David Pecor, WBRU)

Can Scientists Stop One of the World's Deadliest Mosquitoes?

The National Mosquito Collection provides invaluable insight into how species behave and how scientists can detect them before they spread disease.

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