A large fish model in a display case in the Searle Family Lounge. The balcony is framed with neoclassical arches and visitors stop to look at a digital rail.

Searle Family Lounge

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Media

Remaking Akeley's Striped Hyenas Diorama

Media for Wild Color—here, there, and everywhere!

Wild Color—here, there, and everywhere!

Media for Solving the Decades-Long Mystery of Manu

Solving the Decades-Long Mystery of Manu

A vertebra bone that has iridescent rainbow coloring on one side.

Working in Paleontology: An Introduction to the Collections

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Rising from the ashes of Brazil's Museu Nacional fire

Darkling Beetles: Spray acid, play dead

Carl Cotton, wearing a lab coat, stands in front of a display of bird specimens. He looks down at a card he’s holding in his hand.

A Natural Talent: The Taxidermy of Carl Cotton

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Carl Cotton places individual letters on a label for an exhibition featuring hybrid birds.

Carl Cotton: Chicago's Original Black Taxidermist

The Field Museum

What should museums do with their dead? (w/ Caitlin Doughty!)

How Birds inspire Builders

Several ceramic bowls rest on the seafloor, stuck together along with corroded iron and remnants of sea life.

What We’re Still Uncovering from an 800-Year-Old Shipwreck

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What We're Still Uncovering from an 800-Year-Old Shipwreck

Misfits of the Mineral Collection

The Egg Collection!

A very close-up, high resolution photograph of a beetle that has a mostly black body with orange-brown legs and yellow hairs and the backend of the body. Its eyes appear very large and globular.

Megalopinus sanguinitriguttatus, a species of rove beetle.

A Bug’s (After)Life

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A Bug's (After)Life

Inside the Whale Warehouse

Colorfully painted postcard with an aerial view of the 1893 World's Fair. There are rows of different buildings, some with tall domes, and Lake Michigan is visible in the background. The caption reads, "View from Ferris Wheel."

Travel Back to the World's Fair in Our Collection

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Photo Archives GN90799d_WFWC_01w

Black-and-white nighttime photo of a jaguar walking in the forest. Its eyes are illuminated by the camera flash.

The Jaguar and Its Grandchildren

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A jaguar captured by a camera trap during the April 2018 rapid inventory. We captured a total of 10,373 camera trap photos during the inventory, of which 3,646 show mammals.

Close-up view of brown tail vertebrae that curve around. They're positioned on a white cushion.

Rediscovering a Dinosaur Named Elmer

The dinosaur's eight-foot-long tail is nearly complete.

A colored photograph with black border, showing three tents in a row. The foreground is sandy, and the background has a few sparse trees and mountains.

Snapshot of 1896 Expedition Life

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A hand-colored glass lantern slide of camp in Somaliland, with Daniel G. Elliot (with a white beard) seated in his tent. Photo Archives CSZ5941c

Science by Day-Spy by Night [60 Second Specimens]

Murder by Birder [60 Second Specimens]

A small crocodile mummy wrapped in brown cloth with the eyes drawn on, and other similar bundles in the background

Animal Mummies for Sale in Ancient Egypt

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Two women wearing headlamps peer into the mouth of a large taxidermy elephant

Q&A with a Conservator on the Complex History of Ivory

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Conservators Eugenie Milroy (left) and Stephanie Hornbeck examine the teeth and tusks of one of the Akeley elephants in the Field Museum's Stanley Field Hall

The Story of the Museum für Naturkunde

Four visitors stand together in front of two Lions of Tsavo dioramas. The leftmost visitor takes a picture of two lion skulls displayed on pedestals near the lions inside the diorama case.

Tsavo Lions

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SUE the T. rex dinosaur skeleton on display in a museum gallery. Screens behind the dinosaur show a forest scene.

SUE the T. rex

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Two photos, one of a black and white bird with a red head on a tree; one of a row of jars of museum specimens

What Woodpecker Brains Can Tell Us about Concussions

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Left: Downy Woodpecker, Arlene Koviol. Right: Field Museum wet specimens.

The 'Sistine Chapel of Taxidermy'—Conserving Akeley's Elephants

Two images, one of a man with braids in a chef's coat plating several identical dishes; and several cobs of corn of different colors laid out flat

The Sioux Chef: Reinvigorating Indigenous Food Systems

Two images, one of a man with braids in a chef's coat plating several identical dishes; and several cobs of corn of different colors laid out flat. Sean Sherman by Rina Oh for the James Beard Foundation. Corn cobs from Cottonwood Canyon, Utah, in the Museum's collection.

Rows of bird specimens with yellow necks; half have gray stomachs and half have white bellies

What Hundred-Year-Old Birds Tell Us About the Environment

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A woman sitting at a desk with art supplies, holding a pencil in hand and drawing a nautilus

Bringing Fossils to Life Through Art

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Black and white photograph of a woman in a floral dress with a large bird on her hand, and a small child smiling and standing at her side

Beautiful Strangers: Stories of People and Collections

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© The Field Museum, Z78636.

Dried prairie thistle plant specimen attached to paper.

DIY Plant Pressing

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Field Museum specimen of Hill’s thistle (Cirsium hillii) found in Elgin, Illinois, in 1918.

A pinkish purple octopus with a large black eye sitting on the ocean floor, with arms curled

How To Tell Deep-Sea Octopuses Apart? Check Their Warts.

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Photo courtesy of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association.

Fossil Myths: Cyclopes, Griffins, & Magic Fairy Bread

Spring Migration Notes...By a Murderer

A yellowed animal skull with large canine teeth, on a white surface and backdrop

What Makes a Man-Eater? Check the Teeth

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The skull of one of the Tsavo man-eating lions.

Woman sitting at a table in a lab, holding a marker and writing on something small

Women in Science and Art: Rebecca Banasiak, Mammals Collections Assistant and Preparator

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Numbering small skeletal specimens that will be installed into the main mammals collection.

Two photos side-by-side: A women sitting in front of a large drill, and a bowl with a gold bracket attached to it, for display

What's in a Name? That Which We Call a Dinosaur

Women in Art: Ann Prazer, Mountmaker

Shelves of large, ornate books in different colors (green, brown, red, blue), many with gold designs emblazoned on their spines

Four Fascinating Finds in the Rare Book Room

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Fascinating Meteorites With Clues To Understanding Our Solar System

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The Meteorites exhibition, now open at the Museum

Monster Mystery Solved

Tully Monster reconstruction by Sean McMahon

Is the Tully Monster a Vertebrate or an Enigma?

Side-by-side of a woman seated at a desk, working on a drawing, and a close-up of an illustration of orange foxes

Women in Art: Adrienne Stroup, Geology Collections Assistant

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Facts Matter at The Field Museum

Detail of intricate wood carving, with a man with a sword and a horse depicted

The Tushanwan Jesuit Orphanage Wooden Screen

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2016 By The Numbers

A section of a rug with stylized depictions of blue sky with clouds, green and brown mountains, and farmland with cows

Native American Code Talkers: Language Diversity at Work

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Mysterious Madonna and Child Scroll

Antlers: What's Their Function?

Staying Warm in the Far North

Two large dinosaurs, one wearing a Cubs jersey

Why We Don’t Dress Up SUE (Or Any Other Real Skeletons)

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Why We Don't Dress Up SUE (Or Any Other Real Skeletons)

A spiral shell-like fossil next to apples and oranges

A Thanksgiving Tale of Two Horns

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Arietites obtusus specimen (P 2467), photographed by Paul Mayer. 

The Amazing Laser

Illustration of a long house with wood beams

Democracy and the Iroquois Constitution

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Illustration of an Iroquois Long House. Image

The 300-Year Quest to Find Every Tree Species in the Amazon

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Amazonian forest in the Putumayo basin of Loreto, Peru, surveyed during a February 2016 rapid inventory by The Field Museum. Photo 

Zoomed in photo of a fly-like insect trapped in orange amber

Revisiting “Jurassic Park”: Could Dinosaurs Really be Cloned?

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Field Museum specimen of an insect trapped in 40-million-year-old Baltic amber.

Beetles, Mites, Cockroaches Oh My! [Insect Collection Tour]

5 Behind-the-Scenes Specimens with Links to Darwin

Treasures Revealed: The Mary W. Runnells Rare Book Room

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A Diorama for Jerry's Guitar

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Photo @ Chad Anderson Photography.

Monsters Storm The Field

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Stabilizing the Plaster on Minirdis’ Coffin

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Conservator Morgan Nau stabilizes plaster fills with adhesive injected with a syringe. Photo credit: JP Brown. Object number 111517.

Stabilizing the Plaster on Minirdis' Coffin

Defining the "Edges" of Life On Earth

Fossil Fish, PT. III: The Preparation

What the Function? with Smarter Every Day!

How to Pin an Insect

Fields of Thought

About the Turnbull Collection

Ask Emily #8

Chicagoland Butterfly Gallery

Ask Emily #7

Hiding in Plain Sight at the Field Museum

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One of the most interesting things learned about birds in 2012

Will we maintain our connections to other natural history institutions around the world?

Gantz Family Collections Center

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