American Museum of Natural History

Major centre of research and education on the natural sciences, established in New York City in 1869.

It pioneered in staging field expeditions and creating dioramas and other lifelike exhibits showing natural habitats and their plant and animal life. Its research collections contain tens of millions of specimens, and its fossil and insect collections are among the largest in the world. It conducts research in anthropology, astronomy, entomology, herpetology, ichthyology, invertebrate biology, mammalogy, mineralogy, ornithology, and vertebrate paleontology, and it maintains permanent research stations in The Bahamas and the U.S. states of New York, Florida, and Arizona. It also contains one of the world's largest planetariums.

* * *

▪ museum, New York City, New York, United States

 institute established in New York City in 1869. It is a major centre of research and education on the natural sciences. It pioneered in mounting field expeditions and in creating dioramas and other lifelike exhibits showing natural habitats and their plant and animal life. The museum's collections of research specimens number more than 30 million, and its collections of fossils and of insects are among the largest in the world. Its exhibits of fossil dinosaurs and mammals are particularly impressive. The museum conducts research in anthropology, astronomy, entomology, herpetology, ichthyology, invertebrates, mammalogy, mineralogy, ornithology, and vertebrate paleontology. The museum has a 485,000-volume library on natural history, as well as photo, film, and manuscript collections. It also conducts a wide range of educational activities for the public and publishes the monthly magazine Natural History. The Hayden Planetarium, one of the world's largest, forms part of the museum; it has a 10,000-volume library on astronomy and a 75-foot- (23-metre-) diameter Sky Theater.

* * *