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Current Exhibitions

Ground Floor:

Extinction of the Hawaiian Honeycreepers

Exhibit: January 15 - May 30, 2008

Curated by Helen James, Museum Specialist, Division of Birds, National Museum of Natural History
Smithsonian Libraries ExhibitionExamples of Hawaiian Honeycreepers. Photo by John Steiner, Smithsonian Institution.

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

First Floor:

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Discovering Rastafari!

Exhibit: November 2, 2007 – November 8, 2008

Using artifacts, rare photographs, and ephemera to explore the origins and religious practices of the movement in Jamaica, this exhibition takes viewers beyond the popular Jamaican music known as reggae to the deeper roots of the Rastafari culture. Video footage featuring first-person testimony from male and female Rastafari of different ages, nationalities, and racial and class backgrounds speak to Rastafari of unity and to the spread of the movement across the Caribbean and beyond over the past three decades.

The Lost Amazon

Exhibit: April 17, 2008 – October 31, 2008

Journey into the Colombian Amazon through the photographs and quotations of naturalist, Richard Evans Schultes. Schultes explored lands where no naturalists had ever been before. His photographs evoke an era when the tropical rainforests stood immense, and the peoples of the forest relied on plants for sustenance as well as medicinal and religious purposes.

Second Floor:

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 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.

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.

Mexican Cycles: Festival Images by George O. Jackson de Llano.

Exhibit: September 26, 2007 - April 20, 2008

Featuring 150 color photographs of the religious festivals of Indigenous communities from across Mexico, taken between 1990 and 2001 by the Texas-based photographer George O. Jackson de Llano. The exhibition provides an unparalleled view of the diversity of Indigenous Mexican festivals at the turn of the 21st century and of the complex interaction of Indigenous and European religious traditions out of which these festivals emerged.© George O. Jackson de Llano

Western Cultures Hall

Exhibit: Permanent

The institutions, traditions and ideals of North American cultures are deeply rooted in those of western Asia, northern Africa, and Europe. This hall explores some examples from various cultures in the western world including northern Iraq, ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome and the recent discovery of the Iceman, a Copper Age mummy found in an Italian glacier.

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.

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.

Reptiles and Amphibians

Exhibit: Permanent

Preserved reptiles and amphibians await you around every corner in this hall. Learn about their eating habits, defenses, and locomotion. Reptiles on display include Galapagos marine iguanas, sea turtles, snakes, crocodiles, and lizards.

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