American Museum of Natural History

Research alert! A new study, led by scientists from the Museum and the City University of New York, on the eruption of the Cumbre Vieja volcano in Spain’s Canary Islands suggests that on-the-ground volcanic ash studies could be used as a near-real-time monitoring and forecasting tool.

Cumbre Vieja had been dormant for 50 years when it started erupting in the fall of 2021. Samantha Tramontano, a Kathryn W. Davis Postdoctoral Fellow at the Museum and a faculty member in the Master of Arts in Teaching program, was a student at CUNY at the time and had the rare chance to implement a system to collect the volcanic ash produced by the eruption along with her advisor, CUNY’s Marc-Antoine Longpré. For three months in 2021, a team from the Museum, CUNY, and Spanish geologic agencies collected falling ash in buckets and carefully labeled the daily samples for future chemical analysis. The samples were sent back to the Museum for study with an electron microprobe.

The research team, which published their work in the journal Nature Geoscience last week, is the first to capture daily changes in melt chemistry at an active volcano. Read about their findings in our latest blog post.

It’s Wednesday, so hang in there like the bank vole (Myodes glareolus)! Though it resembles a mouse, this species is distinguished by a shorter tail and stockier build. Mostly herbivorous, it’s a proficient climber that uses acrobatic skill to reach seeds and fruits. Its diet also includes moss, fungi, and nuts. Weighing up to 1.27 oz (36 g), this diminutive critter can be found across much of Europe as well as parts of Asia.

Photo: Sue Cro, CC BY-NC 2.0, iNaturalist

Welcome back to Trilobite Tuesday! Pictured is a rare Bumastus graftonensis from the tan-toned Niagaran Limestone outcrops surrounding the Joliet Formation. This locale, near the small Midwestern town of Grafton, Illinois, is known for its three-dimensionally preserved trilobites. In certain Silurian locations, trilobites, like this one, emerge from their eons-old sedimentary encasements as little more than dull, dolomite-infused internal molds—specimens totally devoid of their calcite carapaces.

Who’s this fuzzy potato? It’s the hairy-tailed mole (Parascalops breweri)! Found in parts of eastern North America, this burrowing mammal creates tunnels that can extend up to 78 ft (24 m) long. Though it typically weighs only 2.2 oz (62.8 g), this critter’s powerful forelimbs can generate force more than 30 times its body mass, allowing it to slide through the soil with ease. Its diet includes worms, insects, and snails.

Photo: crazybirdy, CC BY-NC 4.0, iNaturalist

Have you ever heard of the Subway Garnet? This piece of almandine was discovered in 1885 under 35th Street between 7th Avenue and Broadway, near Herald Square. Its nickname is misleading, because it was actually uncovered during excavation for sewer pipes. Construction for New York City subways did not begin until 1900, more than a decade after this specimen was found—but who wants to get close to the Sewer Garnet?

Photo: D. Finnin / © AMNH

For today’s Exhibit of the Day, let’s take in the view near Mt. Aconcagua, Argentina—the highest mountain in the Western Hemisphere. In this scene, depicted at an elevation of 10,000 ft (3,050 m), it’s easy to spot the birds of the high Andes. But with a wingspan of about 10 ft (3 m), this pair of Andean Condors (Vultur gryphus) would be pretty hard to miss anywhere. These big birds weigh around 33 lbs (15 kg), making them some of the largest flying birds on the planet!

See them up close in the Museum’s Hall of Birds of the World! Plan your visit.

Photo: © AMNH

It’s Fossil Friday! Let’s swim back in time about 85 million years to the Late Cretaceous to meet Xiphactinus, a gigantic predatory fish. This species could reach lengths of 17 ft (5.2 m) and was capable of swallowing a 6-ft- (2-m-) long fish whole! The Museum’s Xiphactinus fossils come from Logan County, Kansas, which is home to 70-ft- (21.3-m-) tall sedimentary formations. Though that might not sound like an ideal home for an ocean-dweller, the entire area was covered by a vast inland sea during the Cretaceous. See Xiphactinus in the Museum’s Hall of Vertebrate Origins!

Photo: Image no. ptc-6634 © AMNH  (taken 1996)

Gerstner Postdoctoral Fellow Daniel Hooper (@danielmhooper) studies the genetics of color evolution in Australian finches at the Museum. He recently published a study on the genetics of color variation in Long-tailed Finches and shares his findings on why some of these finches have red beaks, while others have yellow or orange beaks. This research, recently published in Current Biology, was all catch and release.

Fieldwork photos courtesy of Daniel Hooper, Geoffrey Giller, and Simon Griffith.

🚨Exciting news! More than 6,000 3D scans of non-human primate skeletons collected over the last decade are now available for research worldwide—providing a valuable resource to scientists in the fields of biology, biological anthropology, evolutionary science, and conservation. This multi-institution effort was led by Museum scientists Sergio Almécija, a senior research scientist in the Museum’s Division of Anthropology, Nancy Simmons, curator and chair of the Museum’s Mammalogy Department, and Ashley Hammond, curator and chair of the Museum’s Division of Anthropology.

Now available on the National Science Foundation-funded repository MorphoSource, the dataset includes scans of nearly 400 individual specimens—ranging from great apes to Eurasian and South American monkeys. The physical specimens that were digitized as part of this effort are housed in collections at the Museum, Stony Brook University in New York, the National Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C., the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, and the Royal Museum for Central Africa (Belgium). 

Welcome back to Trilobite Tuesday. Pictured is a 3.5-in- (8.9-cm-) long specimen of Albertella longwelli. This Middle Cambrian species is one of the most notable of all Nevada trilobites! Recent advances in preparation techniques have made complete specimens of these generally thin-shelled arthropods more common on the world stage.

The bat-eared fox enjoys munching on dung beetles, and dung beetles lay their eggs in the poop of ungulates like zebras and antelope. Using its oversized ears, this animal can even hear beetle larvae hatching in dung, which probably sounds a lot like a dinner bell to this wily critter. In fact, dung beetles and termites make up about 80 percent of this species’ diet, and a single bat-eared fox can eat up to 1.15 million termites each year!

Photo: wicus leeuwner, CC BY-NC 4.0, iNaturalist

For today’s Exhibit of the Day, let’s visit one of the finest large mineral crystals ever found: the Tarugo, a dazzling elbaite tourmaline. This large gem measures 33.5 in (85 cm) in length and weighs 180 lbs (82 kg)! The Tarugo is notable for its exceptional quality and unique cranberry color.

See it up close in the Museum’s Mignone Halls of Gems and Minerals!

Photo: © AMNH

Diamonds are a scientist's best friend—if they're studying Earth's inner layers! Natural diamonds form in the Earth’s molten mantle, far deeper than humans have ever drilled. In this video, mineralogist Kate Kiseeva, assistant curator in the Division of Physical Sciences, explains how tiny crystals captured within these diamonds give scientists a direct window into our planet's inner structure.

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. 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.” Brown and his crew discovered the skeleton in the badlands along the Red Deer River in Canada. You can see it up close in the Hall of Ornithischian Dinosaurs!

Photo: D. Finnin / © AMNH

“New Year, new me!” It’s time to shed the old year and welcome the new one. Meet the green anole (Anolis carolinensis), a small lizard found throughout much of the southeastern United States. Did you know? As an anole grows, it sheds its old skin. This process, called ecdysis, helps the lizard get rid of damaged or infected skin and allows for new healthy skin to replace it. In fact, most reptiles (including turtles and snakes) shed their skin as they grow.

Photo: Outdoor Alabama, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0, flickr

Here’s something to think about as you kick off 2025: We are all stardust. Every atom of oxygen in our lungs, of carbon in our muscles, of calcium in our bones, of iron in our blood—was created inside a star before Earth was born. Hydrogen and helium, the lightest elements, were produced in the Big Bang. Almost all of the other, heavier, elements were produced inside stars. Stars forge heavy elements by fusion in their cores. In a star of intermediate mass, these elements can mix into the star’s atmosphere and be spread into space through stellar winds.

Image: NASA Hubble Space Telescope, CC BY 2.0, flickr

🔮 There are good things to come in the New Year. Wishing everyone a happy and healthy 2025! The Museum will be open on New Year’s Day.

💎 Rock crystal has drawn the admiration of people around the world as an enticing medium for carving and was used for jewelry as early as 4,000 years ago—and was sometimes considered to have supernatural properties.