What’s the Point of Natural History Collections?
May 05, 2025
From Cretaceous crabs to a big mighty female Carolina redhorse, Museum collections have unlimited stories to tell. Take a behind-the-scenes tour of the ichthyology, paleontology and mammalogy collections with Dr. Adrian Smith, head of the Museum’s Evolutionary Biology & Behavior Lab and creator of the YouTube channel Ant Lab.
“I think the coolest part of this Museum, the real core of what natural history museums are,” Smith says, “are their collections. But most of those are off exhibit, so it can be hard to see and appreciate what they are and why they’re important. So, in this video, I want to show you them. I want to bring you down to the collections to meet some of our collections-based scientists and hear straight from them what collections are and why they’re valuable cultural assets.”
For more information about our upcoming activities, conservation news and groundbreaking research, follow @NaturalSciences on Instagram and Facebook.