American Museum of Natural History

American Museum of Natural History, incorporated in New York City in 1869 to promote the study of natural science and related subjects. Buildings on its present site were opened in 1877. Among the buildings later added were the Hayden Planetarium (opened 1935) and the Roosevelt Memorial building (completed 1936). In 2000 the museum opened the Rose Center for Earth and Space, which contains a new, state-of-the-art Hayden Planetarium. The museum maintains exhibitions in all branches of natural history, including anthropology and ecology. As a result of its wide explorations and research programs, it has acquired specimens and data of great value. Resources are derived from endowment, grants from the city, and a membership fund. Among the facilities for study are an extension library; illustrated lectures; publications; programs for young people; a special school service whereby the museum cooperates with city schools; circulating exhibits; habitat groups of animals and plants; a mineral and gem collection; an unrivaled assemblage of skeletons of extinct animals, especially dinosaurs; and replicas of invertebrates in glass. In 1995 the museum opened its extensively renovated dinosaur halls, making it the world's largest exhibit of its kind.

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American Museum of Natural History

Major centre of research and education on the natural sciences, established in New York City in 1869. It pioneered in staging field expeditions and creating dioramas and other lifelike exhibits showing natural habitats and their plant and animal life. Its research collections contain tens of millions of specimens, and its fossil and insect collections are among the largest in the world. It conducts research in anthropology, astronomy, entomology, herpetology, ichthyology, invertebrate biology, mammalogy, mineralogy, ornithology, and vertebrate paleontology, and it maintains permanent research stations in The Bahamas and the U.S. states of New York, Florida, and Arizona. It also contains one of the world's largest planetariums.