This year celebrate the museum’s 100-year anniversary and explore a host of new exhibitions and programs beneath the dome of this 1910 Beaux Arts building. The museum’s 18 exhibition halls contain tens of thousands of artifacts and specimens that together tell the story of the earth and its evolution.

Don't Miss

NEW “Losing Paradise: Endangered Plants Here and Around the World” (Aug. 14-Dec. 12). Explore the beauty and diversity of the world’s endangered plants through 45 works by members of the American Society of Botanical Artists. Learn about the museum’s efforts to help plant conservationists determine which plant species are threatened and how botanical illustration supports scientific work.

NEW “Cyprus” (Sept. 29-May 1, 2011). The easternmost island of the Mediterranean has been a crossroads of civilizations for 11,000 years. Discover the history of Cyprus, its struggles and achievements—through a rich collection of antiquities, many of which are on view for the first time outside the country.

NEW “Celebrating 100 Years at the National Museum of Natural History” (May 29-March 20, 2011). Marking the centennial anniversary of the museum, this photography exhibit focuses on the behind-the-scenes scientific research and discovery—the wellspring for the museum’s exhibitions and programs.

Ground Floor
Birds of Washington, D.C

This colorful collection of 500 species of mounted birds found throughout the District of Columbia, both year-round and seasonally, includes the 3-inch-long golden-crowned kinglet and the 16-inch pileated woodpecker.

First Floor

At the rotunda’s center is the museum’s eight-ton, 13-foot-tall African bush elephant, which has been on display since 1959. Today, the elephant can be seen in a setting similar to its native savanna habitat.

Sant Ocean Hall

All life—including yours—depends on the ocean. The vast ocean covers more than two-thirds of the planet. Beneath its waves lies an amazing diversity of habitats, from coral reefs to polar seas. Among the many fascinating exhibits within the hall are a 45-foot-long model of a living North Atlantic right whale, a 1,500-gallon aquarium featuring a live Indo-Pacific coral reef ecosystem, a 26-foot-long Northwest Coast Indian dugout canoe and two giant squid specimens.

David H. Koch Hall of Human Origins

The exhibition traces the epic story of how humans evolved in response to a changing world and asks the question “What does it mean to be human?” A multi-media immersion experience allows visitors to meet face-to-face with Sahelanthropus, the oldest known fossil human. Want to know how you’d look as a Neanderthal? Don’t miss the face-morphing station where visitors can digitally transform themselves into several early human species.

Discovery Room

In the popular Discovery Room, located near the “African Voices” exhibition, find fossils, skulls, shells and minerals, as well as hands-on activities especially designed for families with children. Check out the “Biodiversity Wall,” featuring plants and animals found in the Washington, D.C. area. Regular hours: Tuesday through Thursday, noon to 2:30; Friday, 10:30 to 2:30; Saturday and Sunday, 10:30 to 3:30; closed Mondays.

Kenneth E. Behring Family Hall of Mammals

Featuring 274 masterfully crafted taxidermic specimens, nearly a dozen fossil casts and several dramatic interactive displays, this 25,000-square-foot exhibition tells the story of the evolution of mammals and how they adapted to different habitats, from the sweltering desert to the bone-chilling poles. Allow one hour for the optimal family visit.

Join Harriet, a life-size chimpanzee sculpture, in the Evolution Theater for a nine-minute film. Hang out among the mammals at the African savanna water hole and experience a dramatic recreation of a rainstorm. View the world as a jaguar does, hunting at night in a South American jungle.

Paleontology

In the “Dinosaur Hall,” walk among the gigantic fossilized bones of the creatures that roamed the earth as long as 210 million years ago. At the center of the hall is the 90-foot Diplodocus longus, which was found in Utah in 1923. Don’t miss Tyrannosaurus rex, 40 feet long and still fearsome after 65 million years.

The adjacent hall, “Life in the Ancient Seas,” encompasses 542 million years of marine evolution. See fossils of ancient creatures like the ichthyosaur, which lived at the time of the dinosaurs; the ancient whale Zygorhiza kochii, which lived about 38 million years ago; and the Squalicorax, a relative of today’s great white shark.

In the “Early Life Hall,” there’s a meteorite that is 4.6 billion years old. Scientists study meteorites like this one because they contain amino acids, which are the cell’s essential building blocks and may have been the source for the organic compounds that kick-started life on our planet.

Moving into the “Fossil Plants Hall,” see how the evolution of the first seeds 300 million to 350 million years ago changed life on earth.

In the “Ice Age Hall,” learn how scientists think our human ancestors lived 35,000 years ago. View fossilized skeletons of ancient mammals, including a saber-toothed cat, a woolly mammoth and a mastodon. Check out the nearby FossiLab, where researchers may be at work studying fossils.

African Voices

Examine an aqal, a contemporary, portable Somali house, and an early 20th-century carved door from Zanzibar. African cultures come alive in this exhibition.

Second Floor

Janet Annenberg Hooker Hall of Geology, Gems and Minerals

Formed long ago by heat and pressure deep within the earth, minerals and gemstones delight us with their distinctive shapes and brilliant colors.

Choose from two approaches to view the artifacts in these galleries. Science buffs may like the slow, studied route with opportunities to see, for example, a model of the 3-D molecular structure of NaCl—sodium chloride, or ordinary table salt. The fast route takes visitors directly to the museum’s most asked-for specimen, the 45.52-carat Hope Diamond.

The museum holds the world’s most extensive meteorite collection. Some 20,000 of these space travelers are here, many on display, including some you can touch. Visit the “Plate Tectonics Gallery” and create your own earthquake using the interactive seismograph.

Western Cultures

The “Hall of Western Cultures” features 2,500 artifacts reflecting the rich traditions and multiple influences of societies that thrived around the Mediterranean Sea from 8,000 B.C. to about A.D. 500. See several 3,000-year-old Egyptian coffins and 3,500-year-old death masks.

Forensic Anthropology

“Written in Bone: Forensic Files of the 17th-Century Chesapeake” (Feb. 7, 2009-Jan. 6, 2013). Human anatomy and forensic investigation provide intriguing information on people and events of America’s past. This exhibition examines history through 17th-century bone biographies, including those of colonists teetering on the edge of survival at Jamestown, Virginia, and those of wealthy and well-established individuals of St. Mary’s City, Maryland. The Forensic Anthropology Lab is open 1 to 5, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday; and from 11 to 4 on Saturday and Sunday.

Bones and Reptiles

A group of primate skeletons greets visitors to the “Bones Hall.” Notice the shrew’s ribs, so tiny they look like bits of white thread. Can you spot the zebra’s broken rib? A Gila monster’s tail looks too big—it’s only slightly smaller than the body. A Komodo dragon looks like a monster from the past. (See a live Komodo dragon at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo.)

Insects

In the “O. Orkin Insect Zoo,” hold in your hand a Madagascar hissing cockroach, a lubber grasshopper or a tomato hornworm caterpillar.

Butterflies

Discover how butterflies evolved, adapted and diversified in the exhibition “Butterflies + Plants: Partners in Evolution.” In the “Live Butterfly Pavilion” walk past hundreds of butterflies fluttering among the tropical plants.

The Korea Gallery

This exhibition features cultural objects and artifacts from the Smithsonian and other collections. Ceramics, paintings, textiles and sculptures—from the 6th century B.C. to the 21st century—represent more than two millennia of Korea’s history and distinctive culture.

One Last Thing

Outside the building on Madison Drive, flanking the entrance steps, are three natural wonders: two 220-million-year-old petrified logs from Arizona and a 2.25-billion-year-old boulder of banded iron ore from Michigan.

Museum Stores

In the two ground-floor stores, find unique items, jewelry, home accents, toys, clothing and accessories for everyone on your gift list. Don’t miss the wonderful selection of multicolored amber necklaces. Visit the store in the Sant Ocean Hall to find gifts inspired by the sea. The Gem Store is on the second floor near the exit of the IMAX theater. Hobbyists and jewelry lovers will find all that glitters gathered together. Outside the “Hall of Mammals” is the Mammals Museum Store, where you can purchase a cuddly, stuffed animals. Choose from toys, posters, jewelry, apparel and books.

The Naturalist Center

The Family Learning Center in Leesburg, Virginia, designed especially for budding scientists, is a “hands-on, minds-on” study center with activities for ages 10 and older.

The Main Study Gallery boasts a “library” of 36,000 natural history specimens to examine in detail. Find books and scientific tools, plus a trained staff to help. The game “Museum Mysteries” will test your detective skills.

Address: 741 Miller Drive, Suite G2, Leesburg, Virginia 20175.

Parking is free. Open Tuesday through Saturday, 10:30 to 4. Closed holidays. Call 703-779-9712 for more information.

WHAT IS EVOLUTION?

Most simply, evolution is a change in groups of living things over time, a process that connects all forms of life to one another. The evolution of living things has been occurring for billions of years and is responsible for the dazzling diversity of life on earth. That is a fact.

Follow the EVOLUTION TRAIL with Iggy the iguana.
1 Environmental Change
Ice Age Hall, 1st Floor
How do species change with climate?

2 Natural Selection
Butterflies and Plants Hall, 2nd Floor
Why are orchids and insects partners in evolution?

3 Adaptation
Hall of Mammals, 1st Floor
What do animals in the desert or ocean need to survive?

4 Innovation
Fossil Mammals Hall, 1st Floor
How did the amniotic egg change natural history?

5 Diversification
Hall of Mammals, 1st Floor
What do mice, rats and shrews have in common?

6 Extinction
FossiLab, 1st Floor
Are we in the middle of a mass extinction?

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