Research & Collections

The Natural History Museum will be closed on Friday, July 4 in observance of Independence Day. We will reopen on Saturday, July 5.

Research and Collections

Photograph of Butterfly specimens in the NHM collection

Our Collections

NHM has, wait for it, 35 million real objects and artifacts. Explore them online!

See what we've got

Our Research

There are dozens of scientists and historians on staff, protecting our records of the planet, and making new discoveries all the time.

What our experts are up to

austin hendy looking at specimens in collections research and collections

Recent highlights

A Monster “Goblin” at the Feet of Dinosaurs

Meet the newly discovered giant, armored lizard named for the Hobbit’s goblin prince

An silhouette of a bird filled with naming words like 'black' 'western' etc

A First Step to Bird Names as Simple as ABC

First-of-its-kind Avian Lexicon Atlas maps how bird species get their names

Illustration of a long-legged crocodile-looking reptile looks at a mammal carcass on an ancient tropical islands

How Ancient Crocodile-Like Predators Ruled the Islands of the Caribbean

NHM's scientist discovers that sebicids, ancient land-dwelling crocodile-like beasts, reigned over the West Indies as apex predators after vanishing from South America

A skeletal looking Vinciguerria mabahiss under a microscope and black background

The Lights Below

A new study shines a light on the mechanics of bioluminescence in the rare fish Vinciguerria mabahiss and we explore some of the other fish lighting up the deep