American Museum of Natural History

This Fossil Friday, let’s get a leg up on the weekend with a colossal limb! This gigantic leg belonged to a sauropod dinosaur. A Museum preparator, standing on a ladder nearby, showcases its enormous size. Known for their long necks and tails, sauropods were the biggest of all dinosaurs and some of the largest animals to have ever walked the planet. One of the very largest, the huge Argentinosaurus, may have grown to a staggering weight of 90 tons (82,000 kg)!

Learn more about dinosaurs at the Museum! Plan your visit.

Photo: Image no. 335820 © AMNH Library

☀️⚫🔭The eclipse is coming! Come celebrate at the Museum. On Monday, April 8, a solar eclipse will cross North America, passing over Mexico, the United States, and Canada.

Here in New York City, we’ll be able to see the Moon cover up to 90 percent of the Sun! The eclipse will start at 2:10 pm, reach maximum coverage at 3:25 pm, and end at 4:36 pm. Join us at the Museum before the eclipse for family-friendly educational activities and to receive your eclipse glasses, with Museum admission and while supplies last.

This archival image, snapped outside the Hayden Planetarium, shows Museum staff preparing to document a solar eclipse in 1940. During an expedition to Jacksonville, Florida in April of that year, a plane carrying pilots, photographers, reporters, and a Museum curator soared 16,200 ft (4,938 m) into the air to photograph this celestial phenomenon from the sky.

Photo: Image no. 292466 / © AMNH Library

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s… a dinosaur? Nope to all of the above. This Fossil Friday, let’s talk about pterosaurs—the first animals with bones to evolve powered flight. Though they were related to dinosaurs, pterosaurs evolved on a separate branch of the reptile family tree. They ruled the skies for more than 150 million years, evolving into dozens of different species. Some were as small as a paper airplane while others, like Pteranodon pictured here in the Museum's Hall of Late Dinosaurs circa 1940-1960, had a wingspan of more than 20 ft (6 m).

Along with other large pterosaurs, Pteranodon longiceps was first discovered in western Kansas, near a chalk formation called Monument Rocks. Today the region is dry, but at the time this species lived, about 85 million years ago, central North America was covered by a seaway. This large pterosaur likely spent its days flying over the sea. Unlike early species of pterosaurs, Pteranodon and many other Cretaceous-era species didn’t have any teeth. In fact, its genus name means “winged and toothless,” while the second name, longiceps, means “long-headed.”

Today, you can find Pteranodon in the Hall of Vertebrate Origins. We're open daily from 10 am-5:30 pm! Plan your visit.

Photo: Image no. ptc-217 © AMNH Library

Happy Fossil Friday! This photo is a blast from the past. Snapped circa 1959, it features a visitor admiring the iconic Stegosaurus. With its plated back, spiked tail, and tiny head, it’s one of the Museum’s most recognizable dinosaurs. This large herbivore, which lived during the Jurassic some 140 million years ago, could reach lengths of more than 28 feet (8.5 meters). 

This armored dinosaur likely used the distinctive plates along its back for display, to attract mates, or signal its own species. Fossils of stegosaur plates are criss-crossed with grooves for blood vessels, indicating that they were covered with skin or keratin (the material in your fingernails) when the animal was alive. 

See Stegosaurus up close in the Museum’s Hall of Ornithischian Dinosaurs! We’re open daily from 10 am-5:30 pm. Plan your visit!

Photo: Image no. ptc-876 © AMNH Library

It looks like another snowy day in New York City! Here’s a view of the Museum’s 77th Street entrance in 1905, pulled from our Digital Collections. You can spot one of Manhattan’s elevated trains in the background, which operated on the Upper West Side until 1940.

Stay warm this weekend with a visit to the Museum! We're open daily from 10 am-5:30 pm.

Image no. 128664 / © AMNH

Here's one last Fossil Friday for 2023! Have you ever heard of Centrosaurus apertus? This dinosaur lived during the Late Cretaceous, about 75 million years ago. Unlike Triceratops, it had one large horn over its nose, small horns over the eyes, and a relatively short frill. This specimen was uncovered by famed Museum fossil hunter Barnum Brown in 1914 in the badlands along Canada's Red Deer River. He considered it to be the most complete specimen he had ever found, “in all details from the tip of the tail to the end of the nose.”

This photo was snapped circa 1956—and you can still see Centrosaurus up close in the Museum's Hall of Ornithischian Dinosaurs! Plan your visit.

Photo: Image no. 324095 / © AMNH Library

This Fossil Friday, meet the Warren mastodon: the first complete American mastodon (Mammut americanum) skeleton found in the United States! This fossilized proboscidean was discovered in a bog in Newburgh, New York in 1845. It was remarkable for being preserved in the position in which it had died some 11,000 years ago—standing upright with its legs thrust forward and its head tilted upward, likely gasping for air under mud in which it had become mired.

Photo: Image no. 35140 / © AMNH Library (circa 1906)

This archival image, snapped circa 1899, depicts paleoartist Charles Knight working on a scale model of the dinosaur Stegosaurus. In life, this species could measure 28 ft (8.5 m) long and weigh about 6,000 lbs (2,720 kg). But when this animal was discovered, paleontologists were surprised to find that its skull—and brain—were disproportionately small. In fact, some scientists thought this massive herbivore must have had a "second brain" near its hips that controlled the back half of its body. Turns out, Stegosaurus did manage with just one relatively small brain.

Photo: Image no. 327667 / © AMNH Library 

In honor of yesterday's whale wash, we're taking a peek back into the archives at the suspension of the blue whale model from the ceiling of the Hall of Ocean Life in 1968. 

This #ThrowbackThursday, explore archival images from the latest episode of #ShelfLife and be sure to check out the latest episode and 360 video via the link below! This image shows tossing on walrus-hide, a Chukchi midsummer ceremony to ward off dangers from contagious diseases or to assuage violent tempests, 1900-1901. Taken by Waldemar Borgoras.

Explore the Museum's Digital Special Collections for #ThrowbackThursday. English naturalist Philip Henry Gosse advocated studying living organisms in their natural habitats. He spent eight years observing marine communities on the British coastline, and also in aquariums that he constructed at home. Gosse is famous for coining the term “aquarium.” His handbook on how to make and maintain aquariums set off a Victorian craze for collecting and keeping live marine organisms at home. Gosse recommended the ancient wrasse as a species hardy enough for amateur aquariums. Its natural behavior is to lurk under rock ledges, as pictured here.

Love snow? The Museum's Digital Special Collections features a stunning collection of magnified snow crystals. 

Celebrate #NationalBirdDay and #ThrowbackThursday with a look into the archives at “Girl studying the Alpine Bird Group, Hall of Birds of the World, 1936.” AMNH/286623

Some 10,000 species of copepods—tiny crustaceans related to crabs and lobsters—thrive in the world’s oceans. A vital link in the ocean food web, they eat bacteria and algae, and in turn are eaten by other invertebrates, fish and even whales. But until the late 1800s scientists knew little about them. 

Take a look into the archives for #ThrowbackThursday. Painting background for Sable Antelope Group, Akeley Hall of African Mammals, 1933. Explore more from the Museum's digital special collections: http://bit.ly/2hadtDM #tbt AMNH/ID: 314206

To expand the Museum’s educational mission beyond its walls, a lantern slide lending library was created and formed the basis of the Natural Science Study Collections which the Museum delivered to New York schools. The lantern slides, reproduced from the growing collection of photographs created and collected by the Museum staff, were originally used to illustrate lectures given to the public at the Museum. The lectures were so successful that a new and larger theater was constructed in 1900 to accommodate the growing crowds. The hand-colored lantern slides shown in this collection range in topic from scenes in the Museum to newly arrived families at Ellis Island - offering a view into the history of science as well as the history of New York City. These beautifully colored images detail the art behind this fascinating photographic process and showcase for future generations science and culture from over a century ago. Explore more lantern slides. 

Over on the Darwin Manuscripts Project website, visitors can peruse thousands of Charles Darwin’s writings. These record Charles Darwin's work as a practicing scientist. Whether you are a student or a researcher, access the primary evidence for the birth and maturation of Darwin's attempts to explore and explain the natural world.