American Museum of Natural History

01/24/2020

If you ever find a pseudoscorpion around your house, don't worry! These tiny arachnids, which range from a mere 2 to 8 millimeters (.08 to .31 inches) in size, are harmless to humans. While they have pincer-like claws reminiscent of a scorpion's, pseudoscorpions lack a stinger. They’re sometimes found in sinks and bathtubs, but they’re also known as “book scorpions” because of some species’ affinity for old books. Many old tomes contain booklice and dust mites, which are a few of pseudoscorpions’ favorite snacks!
Photo: Nikolishin Roman

01/24/2020

Happy Fossil Friday! Does the end of the week have you feeling like this Polyglyphanodon sternbergi? Remains of fossil lizards usually consist of small fragments of skulls and jaws. But at one locality in the Late Cretaceous North Horn Formation in Utah, a remarkable group of nearly 50 individuals was found. Polyglyphanodon was a large lizard that lived some 85 million years ago. Judging from its unusual chiseled teeth, it had a specialized diet, but what it ate is unknown.
Photo: © AMNH

01/24/2020

“I can haz rodents, rabbits, and birds?" That's what's on the menu for the European wild cat (Felis silvestris silvestris)! There are a variety of wild cat subspecies around the world, such as the African wild cat (Felis silvestris lybica) and the Asiatic wild cat (Felis silvestris ornata). Besides geographic range, what sets the European wild cat apart is its bushy tail, thick fur, and overall bulkier appearance. It can be spotted in parts of France, Italy, Spain, and the Mediterranean.
Photo: Emőke Dénes

01/23/2020

Not everyone can pull off bold brows like the Spot-bellied Eagle-owl (Bubo nipalensis). The bird of prey’s “eyebrows” are actually ear tufts that can be as long as 3 inches (7.6 centimeters)! This bird’s larger stature adds to its imposing look. The owl grows up to 25 inches (65 centimeters) tall with a wingspan that can reach 18.8 inches (47.8 centimeters). It has a wide range across parts of Southeast Asia, including India, Thailand, and Bangladesh. Forests are its preferred habitat, and it feeds on a variety of critters such as birds, mammals, and reptiles.
Photo: N A Nazeer

01/23/2020

Leaping Laelaps! That was the first title of this famous Throwback Thursday watercolor by Charles R. Knight. Knight’s late 19th-century painting was unique at the time for its depiction of dinosaurs as highly active and dynamic animals. The original artwork is just one of thousands of items housed in the Museum Library’s Memorabilia Collection, which is being reorganized for increased access through the Shelby White and Leon Levy Archive Initiative. Paleontologist Edward Drinker Cope named the genus of this particular dinosaur Laelaps after the mythical Greek canine that always caught what it was hunting. But alas! Laelaps had already been used to name a genus of parasitic mite. So paleontologist Othniel C. Marsh (Cope’s rival) renamed this dino, one of the first known theropods to science, Dryptosaurus in 1877. Theropod dinosaurs are characterized by their hollow bones and three-toed feet—perhaps the best-known theropod is Tyrannosaurus rex!
Photo: Image no. 100205624, © AMNH Library

01/23/2020

Say “hi” to Klaas’s Cuckoo (Chrysococcyx klaas)! Like other species of cuckoos, it exhibits a behavior known as brood parasitism: females lay their eggs in other birds’ nests, distributing up to 24 eggs across various nests in a single season. They then fly away, leaving other parents-to-be responsible for incubating and caring for their hatchling. Klaas’s Cuckoo has a wide range across Africa, where it has a preference for forest, shrubland, and savanna habitats.
Photo: Derek Keats

01/22/2020

What ungulate has a chestnut coat with white stripes, heavy spiraled horns, and lives in Africa? Meet the bongo (Tragelaphus eurycerus)! This mostly nocturnal animal has large ears and an excellent sense of hearing, which helps it to detect and evade threats that go bump in the night. As an herbivore, it feeds on leaves, bushes, and shoots, but also on the bark of rotting trees. Unfortunately, this animal faces population declines due to poaching for its meat and skin, as well as habitat loss.
Photo: Joe Schneid Louisville, Kentucky

01/22/2020

Did you know that Titan is Saturn’s largest moon—and that it’s bigger than the planet Mercury! Titan has intrigued scientists for its thick atmosphere and its surface, which is carved by wind and rain. However, it’s a different type of rain than on Earth. Since the temperatures on Titan are far too cold for liquid water, rain there is composed of methane!
Image: False color view of Titan’s surface by NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

01/22/2020

Have you ever seen the mesmerizing synchronized flight of Starlings (Sturnidae), known as a murmuration? Wonder why the birds do this? Flying in a group of hundreds, sometimes even thousands, provides protection against predators; the mass can be daunting for a falcon who’s trying to snatch a single target from the quick-moving crowd. To stay in a tight formation, each starling is in tune with the motions of seven of its surrounding neighbors. Doing so allows each bird to respond to the fluid movements of the overall cohort, as there’s no single bird leading the flock.
Photo: pxhere

01/21/2020

Welcome to Trilobite Tuesday! One of the world’s legendary Cambrian trilobite locations is found in the Czech Republic. The Jince Formation—made famous by the 19th-century work of French naturalist Joachim Barrande—produces magnificently preserved trilobites like this 6.3-inch- (16-centimeter-) Paradoxides gracilis. Such specimens are remarkably similar to trilobite species found in Morocco, Newfoundland, and Massachusetts, providing evidence to support the theory of plate tectonics.

01/21/2020

Earth: home sweet home. While conditions on neighboring planets in our solar system are too harsh for life, Earth flourishes. What makes it possible? Earth is protected by a magnetic field, which is generated by a churning liquid iron core. Our planet’s dynamic insides pump out heat that help maintain a well-balanced atmosphere allowing for the molecules of life to survive. Now it’s up to us to sustain it.
Scene from Worlds Beyond Earth

01/21/2020

You might be surprised to find out that this feather-like structure—dubbed a sea pen—is actually a colony of polyps that work together to survive in the ocean. Different polyps have different responsibilities depending on their location on the body. There are feeding polyps that catch plankton, as well as polyps that circulate water to keep the colony balanced and upright. About 300 species of sea pens can be found swaying on the ocean floor around the world.
Photo: Jukka Siltanen

01/20/2020

Meet the Asian Fairy-bluebird (Irena puella)! It’s native to the tropical forests of Southeast Asia, like those in Indonesia and Thailand. To distinguish a male from a female, check the plumage: males have a bold, contrasting, black and blue pattern, while females are mostly a lighter blue with some black on the wings. It munches on small fruits and insects and is infamous among coffee farmers for its tendency to snack on the fruits of coffee trees.
Photo: EDDYCUBAUSA

01/20/2020

Mars once had a plentiful water supply and active volcanoes, creating the conditions necessary for life. What happened? Mars is roughly half the size of Earth, so its insides cooled at a faster rate. With its hot interior faded away, Mars’ volcanoes became inactive, the planet’s magnetic field deteriorated, and much of its atmosphere was lost. What’s left is a dry, frozen desert.
Image: ESA

01/20/2020

My, what big feet you have, Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis)! This wild cat specializes in hunting snowshoe hare in snowy, densely vegetated forests. Its broad, well-furred paws, along with its fast reflexes, and excellent hearing and vision, aid it in keeping up with its agile prey. In fact, the Canada lynx almost exclusively eats snowshoe hares, which are almost exclusively hunted by lynx—and this unusually tight predator-prey relationship means that when hare numbers change, so do lynx numbers (and vice versa), sometimes drastically.
Photo: 0x010C, Wikimedia Commons

01/19/2020

Venus and Earth are similar in size and made up of the same material. So why are the two planets so different? Earth has a magnetic field. Venus’ lack of a magnetic field makes it susceptible to blasts from solar wind, which over the course of billions of years has stripped away any water from the planet. The abundance of carbon dioxide in Venus’ atmosphere traps heat from the Sun, turning it into a greenhouse planet with a surface hot enough to melt lead. Studying Venus’ carbon-dioxide-rich atmosphere has deepened our understanding of global warming here on Earth.
Scene from Worlds Beyond Earth

01/19/2020

Meet Tupuxuara leonardii, or the “familiar spirit.” It lived during the Middle Cretaceous around 110 million years ago. Among the vertebrates, pterosaurs were the first to evolve true powered flight. This pterosaur was an advanced member of the group known as pterodactyloids, which were characterized by loss of the tail. Tupuxuara had a crest on the back of its skull that may have helped guide it during flight. Spot this pterosaur in the Museum’s Hall Vertebrate Origins.
Photo: © AMNH

01/19/2020

The Pink Robin (Petroica rodinogaster) is pretty in pink, don’t you think? This Australian species inhabits forests, where its small size and quiet nature makes it more difficult to spot than other species of robin. The female uses a mixture of spider webs, grasses, and moss to build a camouflaged, cup-shaped nest, preferring to make a home in the crevices of trees and shrubs. It’s the males of this species that sport the bright pink plumage on their chests and stomachs, with black on their backsides.
Photo: JJ Harrison

01/18/2020

Have you ever seen a snake with horns? Meet the horned viper (Cerastes cerastes), whose “horns” are actually elongated scales! It’s native to parts of northern Africa, commonly found between Egypt and Morocco. To help cool down its body temperature in its hot desert habitat, it burrows beneath the sand. Doing so also helps to conceal the snake from predators—and unsuspecting prey. Its menu includes the likes of small mammals, birds, and geckos. When under threat by a foe, such as the honey badger, it can deliver a venomous bite to defend itself.
Photo: Zuhair Amr

01/18/2020

The Rosetta spacecraft’s journey began in 2004, when it was launched into space from Kourou, French Guiana. After 10 years of traveling the solar system, the Rosetta reached its target: Comet 67P. What it found was astounding. Analyses showed the presence of frozen water, rock dust, and organic matter—including amino acids, the basic building blocks of life! Are comet collisions, like ones that have hit Earth in the past, delivering potentially life-giving ingredients to worlds?
Image: DLR German Aerospace Center

01/18/2020

It’s a fox! It’s a dog? It’s the maned wolf (Chrysocyon brachyurus), the largest member of the dog family in South America. But these omnivores don’t form packs like real wolves: they live as monogamous pairs that remain mostly independent of each other, except during breeding season. The maned wolf is known for its long legs, bright red fur...and its odd-smelling urine. The musk so closely resembles the odor of cannabis that police once searched a Dutch zoo for a pot smoker that turned out to be wolf pee. Males and females use the scent to mark territory and find each other. It turns out the specific aroma is caused by a compound that occurs in plants, including cannabis and hops.
Photo: Calle Eklund, CC-BY-SA 3.0

01/17/2020

Worlds Beyond Earth Trailer

What have 50 years of space exploration taught us about the planets and moons closest to us? Find out in our new Space Show, Worlds Beyond Earth! The immersive film opens on January 21, 2020, and is narrated by Academy Award-winner Lupita Nyong'o. Did you know? We have the world's most advanced planetarium projection system—so pre-book your tickets today!

01/17/2020

Happy Fossil Friday! Meet Stupendemys geographicus, the “stupendous turtle.” It lived during the Late Miocene some 5 million years ago, and it’s one of the largest turtles to have ever existed. Stupendemys geographicus is a pleurodire, or side-necked turtle, closely related to the living Podocnemis genus. No skull of Stupendemys has ever been found. The sculpted skull used in this specimen is based on that of another very large pleurodire thought to be related to Stupendemys. See it up close in the Hall of Vertebrate Origins!
Photo: © AMNH

01/17/2020

Roll on up to the Hayden Planetarium on January 21 to see Museum’s new Space Show, Worlds Beyond Earth! That’s (kind of) what these people were doing back in 1935, when the planetarium opened its doors to the public for the first time. Since then, humans have gone to the Moon, landed rovers on Mars, and explored the outer reaches of our solar system!
Photo: © AMNH

01/16/2020

Meet the Barn Owl (Tyto alba)! Rather than chewing its food, this bird of prey swallows its meals whole. When munching on rodents such as mice or shrews, it gobbles up everything, from skin to bones. But the remains don’t pass through the owl’s digestive system—they’re coughed back up as pellets! The Barn Owl can be found across much of North America, and throughout the world; its appearance may vary depending on its locale.
Photo: Jitze Couperus

01/16/2020

Did you know that Jupiter has a mass greater than all of the other planets in our solar system combined? By studying its large family of moons, scientists have discovered the gravitational dance in which they pull and tug at one another. One moon in particular, known as Io, is squashed and stretched by these forces, similar to how the tug of Earth’s Moon causes our ocean tides. The result for Io is explosive: heat from friction melts rocks inside, causing eruptions of lava plumes from its frosty surface. In fact, Io is the most volcanically active object in the solar system—an amazing world of fire and ice!
Scene from Worlds Beyond Earth

01/16/2020

Shine bright, like a Diamond Dove (Geopelia cuneata)! While it doesn’t sparkle in the same way a diamond does, this bird has a white-speckled pattern along wings that might remind one of a diamond’s glittering surface. It’s one of the smallest species of dove, with an average length of 8.5 inches (21.5 centimeters) and average weight of 1.3 ounces (35.5 grams). Seeds make up a majority of its diet, though it does snack on the occasional insect.
Photo: spacebirdy

01/15/2020

Don’t you just want to boop the snoot of the pig-nosed frog (Nasikabatrachus sahyadrensis)? This funky-looking critter is native to India, where it lives in forests along the Western Ghats mountain range. It spends most of its time burrowing underground in soil near streams or ponds. Using its sensitive snout, it sniffs the soil in search of termites to feast on. Once it locates a meal, the frog scoops up the termites with its fluted tongue.
Photo: David V. Raju

01/15/2020

Meet Lucrecia Aguilar! She’s one of five post-bac women participating in the Helen Fellowship, a one-year NYC residency at the Museum focused on computational research + educational outreach. (Note: We’re looking for 2020 candidates to apply by January 19! See below for more.) Lucrecia’s fields of interest include mammalogy, animal behavior, wildlife conservation, and anthropology. With Dr. Ashley Hammond, she's currently working to develop a streamlined model that links the bone morphologies and locomotor capabilities of primate species! She also teaches a group of high school Brown Scholars how to code and conduct anthropological research.
Photo: R. Mickens/© AMNH

01/15/2020

Say “hi” to the Knobbed Hornbill (Rhyticeros cassidix)! This Indonesian species lives in forest habitats on the island of Sulawesi, where it feeds on a variety of fruits and animals. Its menu consists of figs, insects, eggs, and nestlings. During breeding season, the colorful bird nests in the cavities of tall trees. Because of its reliance on large trees for nesting, its population is particularly vulnerable to habitat loss as a result of logging and wood harvesting.
Photo: Olaf Oliviero Riemer

01/14/2020

You know Saturn as the “one with rings,” but do you actually know what goes on within these rings? The Cassini spacecraft revealed that Saturn’s rings are home to baby moons the size of houses, behaving like planets forming around a star! While the majority of moonlets separate into pieces, some may “mature” into unique worlds for future explorers to discover!
Scene from Worlds Beyond Earth

01/14/2020

Welcome to Trilobite Tuesday! Did you know that New York is one of the richest trilobite-producing states in the nation? One of New York’s most famous trilobite locations is Beecher Beds in Oneida County. Since the late 19th century, beautiful pyritized Triarthrus trilobites (like the one pictured below) have been found by the hundreds. What’s most significant about these specimens is the preservation of their detailed soft parts—including gills, legs, and antennae—which offer a glimpse into the anatomy of these diminutive specimens. They have an average size of 0.78 inches (2 centimeters)!