Current Exhibitions
Outside Museum Grounds:
Museum Grounds - Urban Bird Habitat
Location: Museum grounds around the outside of the museum.
August, 2012 - Indefinite
Even downtown, birds bring color and song to the heart of the city. The Smithsonian Gardens and the National Museum of Natural History have created habitats around the Museum to attract the many bird species who are either year-round residents or seasonal visitors to the District of Columbia. The Urban Bird Habitat provides birds with their basic needs – food, water, shelter, and a place to raise their young, while signs highlight bird ecology, life histories, and tips for creating backyard bird habitats. Open 24/7.
Ground Floor:
Birds of D.C.
Exhibit: Permanent
Brandishing their fine plumage, the birds in these cases have helped generations of visitors identify local species. Year-round and seasonal residents, migrants and vagrants--hundreds of species in all--are displayed here. Yellow Warbler
The Evolution Trail
Location: Throughout the Museum
Exhibit: December 2008 - Permanent
Why are dinosaurs extinct? Why do giraffes have long necks? Why do flowers come in many colors? Follow Iggy the Iguana on the Evolution Trail throughout the Museum and find the answers to these and other questions. Explore the exhibits to discover how environmental changes, natural selection, extinction, and other factors play a part in the ongoing process of evolution. Iggy the Iguana marks stops on the Evolution Trail
First Floor:
FossiLab
Exhibit: Permanent
This glass enclosed lab allows visitors to watch museum paleontologists and trained volunteers extract fossils from rock and construct fossil casts and molds.
African Elephant
Exhibit: Permanent
His trunk raised in alert, this male African elephant seems to sense your presence. Like humans, elephants have complex social systems. They live in extended family groups led by mature females, who teach and nurture the young. So, if you meet your family "by the elephant," remember that they also meet, grow, learn, and cooperate in groups.
Exhibit Case - The Census of Marine Life: A Decade of Discovery
Location: First Floor, Sant Ocean Hall
One Exhibit Case: September 13, 2012 - Indefinite
The Census of Marine Life project, a decade-long project culminating in 2010, produced the most comprehensive inventory of known marine life ever compiled and cataloged. The project, which will be the basis for future research, involved several curators from the museum and from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Systematics Lab at the museum. This case features the prestigious International COSMOS prize received by the project, graphics, and a squid specimen.
African Voices
Exhibit: Permanent
Examines the diversity, dynamism, and global influence of Africa's peoples and cultures over time in the realms of family, work, community, and the natural environment.
The Kenneth E. Behring Family Hall of Mammals
Exhibit: Permanent
Invites visitors to explore the incredible diversity of mammals, including humans, and the processes by which they arose and continue to adapt. Features 274 exciting mammals and dozens of fossils in a variety of environments.
The David H. Koch Hall of Human Origins
Location: First Floor
Exhibit: March 17, 2010 - Permanent
Based on decades of cutting-edge research by Smithsonian scientists, the David H. Koch Hall of Human Origins will tell the epic story of human evolution and how humans evolved over six million years in response to a changing world. Following the process of scientific discovery, visitors will explore the evidence for human evolution, come face-to-face with unforgettable representations of early humans, and arrive at a deeper understanding of what it means to be human.
Dinosaurs/Hall of Paleobiology
Exhibit: Permanent
How did life and all its wondrous forms come about? The story begins almost 3.5 billion years ago and unfolds in this exhibit. Exhibit includes Dinosaurs, Life in the Ancient Seas, Fossil Mammals and Fossil Plants
Exhibit Case: Dinosaurs in Our Backyard
Location: First Floor, Fossil Halls
One Exhibit Case: April 28, 2010 - Indefinite
From 225 to 65 million years ago, dinosaurs lived everywhere on Earth—including around Washington, D.C. This case explores how scientists piece together information about dinosaur biology, ecology, and evolution from fossil specimens, and the important contributions amateur collectors make to the Museum’s collections and knowledge. Visitors can see a unique skeleton impression of a baby dinosaur of a species new to science.
Discovery Room
Educational Facility: Permanent
The Discovery Room is a unique educational facility for families and students. The room features activities using real Museum objects and interactive, hands-on experiences that allow visitors to explore the natural world at their own pace, guided by their own interests and sense of wonder.
The Sant Ocean Hall
Location: First Floor
Exhibit: Permanent
A one-of-a-kind interpretive exhibit, extraordinary in scale, the Sant Ocean Hall presents the global ocean from a cross-disciplinary perspective, highlighting the biological, geological, and anthropological expertise and unparalleled scientific collections of the Museum, as well as ongoing research in marine science. The ocean is intrinsically connected to other global systems and to our daily lives. Artist rendering of the Sant Ocean Hall
Second Floor:
Eternal Life in Ancient Egypt
Location: Second Floor
Exhibit: November 17, 2011 - Indefinite
This exhibit focuses on Egyptian burial ritual, its place with ancient Egyptian cosmology, and the insights that mummies, burial ritual, and cosmology provide about life in ancient Egypt. Understand how burial practices and associated religious beliefs serve as windows into world cultures. We invite our visitors to explore the ways in which mummies, tombs, and Egyptian mythology open new windows into the lives of ancient Egyptians as they navigated through the world of the living to achieve eternal life after death.
The Evolving Universe
Location: Second Floor
October 21, 2011 – July 7, 2013
Take a mind-bending journey with us from present-day Earth to the far reaches of space and the distant past—back to the beginning of the universe. Explore how stars and galaxies—even the universe itself—change from birth to maturity to death, much like living things on Earth. Full color photographs capture the awe-inspiring beauty of the cosmos as seen through high-powered terrestrial and orbiting telescopes. This exhibition is a collaborative effort with the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory.
The Hope Diamond
Exhibit: Permanent.
The Hope Diamond, is on display in The Harry Winston Gallery. To learn more, visit the Smithsonian Channel's website for the documentary, “Mystery of the Hope Diamond”.
Butterflies + Plants: Partners in Evolution
Exhibit: Permanent
This immersive exhibit explores the processes and patterns of evolution, and provides our visitors with an exciting new kind of experience in the Museum of Natural History - a walk-through living butterfly house. We will invite visitors to observe the many ways in which butterflies and other animals have evolved, adapted, and diversified together with their plant partners over tens of millions of years.Artist rendering of Butterflies + Plants: Partners in Evolution
The Carmen Lúcia Ruby
Exhibit: Permanent
This spectacular 23.1 carat Burmese ruby was recently donated to the Museum by Peter Buck in memory of his late wife, Carmen Lúcia Buck. Mined from the fabled Mogok region of Burma, the ruby possesses a richly saturated homogenous red color combined with an exceptional degree of transparency.
The Janet Annenberg Hooker Hall of Geology, Gems, and Minerals
Exhibit: Permanent
Explore the museum's unparalleled specimens of gems, minerals, rocks and meteorites. Highlights include the Hope Diamond, the National Gem Collection, the Mine and Rocks Galleries, the Plate Tectonics Gallery and the Moon, Meteorites and the Solar System Gallery.
Korea Gallery
Exhibit: Permanent
This new exhibition presents Korea's millennia of history and its distinctive culture through ceramics, paintings, textiles and sculptures, ranging from the 6th century B.C. to the 21st century. Thematic areas of the exhibit include: Korean ceramics, Honoring family, The Korean wedding, Hangeul (the Korean writing system), Korea's natural and built landscapes, Koreans overseas, and Korea's visual arts today.Tiger, magpie, pine, and sacred fungus. Late 19th century.
Osteology: Hall of Bones
Exhibit: Permanent
Who has bones? Fishes, amphibians, birds, reptiles and mammals do. In our Osteology Hall you can observe a variety of vertebrate skeletons grouped by their evolutionary relationships. You can compare a human and gorilla, bone for bone. Count the number of neck vertebrae in a human and a giraffe. Observe skeletal features that are unique to reptiles or to fish.
The O. Orkin Insect Zoo
Educational Facility: Permanent
Visitors can observe live insects and other arthropods at the O. Orkin Insect Zoo. Volunteers conduct tarantula feeding demonstrations, work with live insects, and answer questions about the many-legged creatures that live in the Insect Zoo.
Written in Bone: Forensic Files of the 17th-Century Chesapeake
Location: Second Floor
Exhibit: February 7, 2009 – January 6, 2014
Human anatomy and forensic investigation provide intriguing information on people and events of America's past. This exhibition will examine history through 17th-century bone biographies, including those of colonists teetering on the edge of survival at Jamestown, Virginia, and those of wealthy and well-established individuals of St. Mary’s City, Maryland. At no other time in our history have we had the technological capability or opportunity that are now available to help us tell this tale.
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