Explore the world's natural and cultural wonders 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.

What's New

More Than Meets The Eye (July 23, 2011-October 31, 2012) first floor. Learn to explore the world as the museum's scientists do—observing, documenting and analyzing the natural world.

Against All Odds: Rescue at the Chilean Mine (Opens Aug. 5, 2011) second floor. See the actual rescue capsule that ferried 33 miners to safety in 2010 after 68 days in confinement underground.

The Bright Beneath: The Luminous Art of Shih Chieh Huang (Sept. 3, 2011-Dec. 4, 2011) first floor. After studying bioluminescence in marine organisms while on a museum fellowship, the artist built an assemblage of lights and other found materials that evokes the underwater phenomenon.

The Evolving Universe (Oct. 21, 2011-Jan. 20, 2013) second floor. Explore how stars, galaxies and the universe change from birth to maturity.

Ground Floor
Birds of Washington, D.C

A 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 North Atlantic right whale, a 1,000-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 hominid, and other early ancestors of the human family. 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

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 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.

Paleontology

Dinosaur Hall See the gigantic fossilized bones of 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. Check out the nearby FossiLab, where researchers may be at work studying fossils.

Life in the Ancient Seas Encompassing 542 million years of marine evolution, this hall is home to fossils of ancient creatures like the ichthyosaur, which lived at the time of the dinosaurs; the whale Zygorhiza kochii, which lived about 38 million years ago; and the Squalicorax, a relative of today's great white shark.

Early Life Hall Look for a meteorite that is 4.6 billion years old. Smithsonian scientists study meteorites like this one because they contain amino acids, which are the cell's essential building blocks. Meteorites may have been a source for organic compounds that kick-started life on our planet.

Fossil Plants Hall See how the evolution of the first seeds 300 million to 350 million years ago changed life on earth.

Ice Age Hall Study the fossilized skeletons of ancient mammals, including a saber-toothed cat, a woolly mammoth and a mastodon.

African Voices

Multimedia presentations bring 3,000 years of African cultures alive in this exhibit. Examine an aqal, a contemporary, portable Somali house, and an early 20th-century carved door from Zanzibar.

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 specimens in these galleries. Science buffs may like the more detailed 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 are here, many on display, including some you can touch. Visit the Plate Tectonics Gallery and create your own earthquake using the interactive seismograph.

Special Exhibit Gallery

Race: Are We So Different? (June 18, 2011-Jan. 1, 2012). The exhibition takes a look at race in the United States with biological, cultural and historical points of view.

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

Bones Hall A group of primate skeletons greets visitors to this hall. Notice the shrew's ribs, so tiny they look like bits of white thread. Can you spot the zebra's broken rib?

Mummies

Eternal Life in Ancient Egypt (Opens Nov. 17, 2011). This new permanent exhibit explores Egyptian cosmology and the science of mummies. Learn about burial rituals through recreations of tombs, a tutorial on the mummification process and a display of six mummy masks. Also, learn why scientists study mummies; explore the important roles of two prominent Egyptian gods, Osiris and Re; and see the intricately decorated coffin used for a noblewoman named Tentkhonsu.

Insects

O. Orkin Insect Zoo Hold in your hand a Madagascar hissing cockroach, a lubber grasshopper or a tomato hornworm caterpillar.

Butterflies

Butterflies + Plants: Partners in Evolution Discover how butterflies evolved, adapted and diversified in this exhibition.

Live Butterfly Pavilion Walk among hundreds of butterflies fluttering among the tropical plants.

Special Exhibit Gallery

Nature's Best 2010 Photography Awards: Windland Smith Rice Inter­national Awards (April 16, 2011-Sept. 25, 2011) second floor. These stunning images of plants, animals and people by the 2010 award winners celebrate the beauty of nature.

Find Tt!

Mummy's Tomb
Second floor, Near the Insect Zoo

Tyrannosaurus Rex
First floor, Dinosaurs

Nakla Meteorite
Second floor, Earth, Moon and Meteorites

Land of Kangaroos
First floor, Mammal Hall

Tarantula Feeding
Second floor, Insect Zoo (Ask for times at the information desk.)

Airplane Coffin
First floor, African Voices

The Korea Gallery

This exhibition features cultural objects and artifacts from the Smithsonian and elsewhere. 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.

Museum Stores

In the two ground-floor stores, find unique decorative items, jewelry, home accents, toys, clothing, books and accessories for everyone on your gift list. Don't miss the wonderful selection of multicolored amber necklaces. 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, in the Mammals Museum Store you can purchase cuddly stuffed animals. Choose from toys, posters, jewelry and apparel.

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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