Research & Collections | Natural History Museum

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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!

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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

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Our Staff

Meet scientists and historians

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Our Departments

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Opportunities

Recent highlights

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A life-like painting of a large lizard lurking over a nest of dinosaur eggs with one already in its mouth

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

A male house finch with a little red plumage around its beak and breast alongside otherwise gray feathers being held still by a person's hand

Bird banding, Wildfire Smoke, and the Nature Gardens

Researchers band birds and collect feathers in the Nature Gardens to study the impacts of wildfire smoke on birds.

Bat Specimens from the Mammalogy Collection laid back to back with their specimen tags visible

Digitized Mammals

How the new digitization project Ranges is unlocking the potential of NHM's Mammalogy Collection

Our positions, policies, and processes

Our collections operations are governed by our institutional collections policies.

To request a loan or plan a visit to the collections, please contact the department that holds the materials you’re interested in using.

Statement on Evolution
Statement on Climate Change
Recent NAGRPA Regulations on the Display of Native American Objects

Our Research Departments

Our Research Departments

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