Research & Collections

Our Collections

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

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

Research and Collections

Seeing the big picture with tiny specimens and one powerful scanning electron microscope

A week's worth of spotlighting species (and some ways you can help) in recognition of California's Biodiversity Week, September 3-11, 2022.

An ancient fossil reveals the earliest panda on an exclusively bamboo diet and the evolutionary history of panda's false thumbs

Our Curator of Mineral Sciences, Aaron Celestian, talks about why this mineral blows his mind!

Can gypsum crystals hold alien life from Mars? Explore every facet of these incredible crystals with our Mineral Sciences Curator Aaron Celestian.

Picturing the perfect city raptor with community science data

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.