Event name: American Museum of Natural History

Event time and place: New York City, NY (Nov. 16th 2024)

The American Museum of Natural History in New York City, NY holds various halls, collections, and even a planetarium, each with their own subsections of displays and informational plaques. Across the museum there are over 40 exhibition halls that cover the long history of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, biodiversity, environments, human origins and culture, earth and planetary science, and fossils. In addition to these halls there are various collections put together to highlight the specimens of the museum's research for the public to gaze and awe at the over 3000 specimens and artifacts. Of these displays the Dinosaur Hall, Hall of Vertebrate Origins, the Collections Core, and the Space Show were some of the most unique and interesting exhibits in the entire museum.

Starting with the Dinosaur Hall, they are organized in a way that divides the fossils by evolutionary traits, having stands as you walk through depicting the new feature and displaying the fossils containing those traits. Additionally they are divided by habitat and diet. Some fun facts highlighted are that early long neck plant eaters were really small but due to larger amounts of rain and plants that grew tall and full allowed plant eaters to grow to massive sizes. They also almost never chewed and instead would have gizzards that would shred the plants they swallowed. Another interesting thing is carnivores were always bipedal throughout their entire history. Although the exhibit has an abundance of information it hasn't been updated in quite some time meaning there is error when contradicting info is discovered. In this case the museum was not aware that duck-billed dinosaurs likely had beaks at the end to square off their face unlike the depictions of them displayed in the hall.

Moving onto the Hall of Vertebrate Origins, it was organized the same way as dinosaurs. Some interesting facts are that there is a clear distinction between different types of fish based on the location of their fins hence the distinction of ray finned versus lobe finned. Something interesting about ray finned fish is they have double the genomes thus double the traits to vary which is why seahorses and more traditional fish like a perch are both ray finned but look so wildly different. Something that was slightly outdated is it was believed that turtles were the base ancestor of reptiles, though new studies show that they derived from crocs and birds rather than as a base.

The Collections Core is unlike anything I have ever seen before. Each section highlights a different collection as well as some information regarding the research they were doing and how the specimens were collected. For example, trilobites being a marine creature with a hard exoskeleton, was an easily preserved specimen in the fossil record as the tides of water helps bury the remains further and further leaving them less vulnerable to being eaten or weathered. In other cases remains were collected such as with the box turtles where several shells were collected from the same island and you were able to see the large variation of size and patterns. Having these examples are very insightful into the history and variation of nature whether it is a local variation or a continental variation as you can learn so much about the lives and habits of specimens just by comparing and contrasting ever so slightly different traits. Looking back there are some ethical questions that arise when collecting these large databases of creatures. Though it can seem wrong, a large part is a collection of deceased animals but in the cases such as insects and frogs where it’s not, they have much larger populations. Additionally, collecting these live specimens allows scientists to track them better to prevent them from becoming invasive or getting invaded to preserve the rest of the population in the future.

Finally, the Space Show held in the Hayden Planetarium presents a different informational show each year. This year's topic, Worlds Beyond Earth. It covered the discoveries of any possible qualities of inhabitants on planets and asteroids. The show was heavily CGI based in order to show details like Titan having a thick atmosphere, the layout of planets and asteroids in our solar system, signs of amino acids on said asteroids, and more. Many of the models used seemed to be exaggerated at times for simplification although when describing sizes and quantitative values they were backed with measurements. Additional lots of data was presented that I had never heard before such as Mars and Venus being uninhabitable despite being similar to earth due to asteroids burning up the water on mars and the lack of magnetic field charring Venus.

All-in-all the museum is an experience for all to enjoy. The interactives are typically low enough for kids to be able to mess with, there are elevators, ramps, various handicap accessible areas for mobility issues, there are samples for you to touch and interact with sensory wise, there are map QR codes places all about with a large amount of languages covered to help guide making the museum accessible, enjoyable, and navigable for all.