#PrattKeeping is a key component of the exhibition process. Our Dinosaur Curator, Matthew Carrano, has a tough job!
Smithsonian NMNH
25.8K posts
Smithsonian NMNH
@NMNH
The @Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. Understanding the natural world and our place in it. Legal: s.si.edu/legal
Washington D.C.
Joined March 2008
- Anthropologist Grover Krantz loved to teach & loved his pets. He decided that when he died he would donate his body to a scientific research collection—as long as his dog Clyde could stay with him. What better way to honor the love between man & man's best friend? #NationalPetDay
- Proof that birds are dinosaurs? A mourning dove with her chick in a Triceratops-protected nest. Happy #FossilFriday and thanks to @SIGardens’ Urban Bird Habitat for creating this ecosystem and the photo! #SmithsonianInBloom
- On what would’ve been #Prince’s 60th birthday, we share this purple wonder. This chalcedony—a type of quartz—from Sulawesi, Indonesia is a variety called “grape agate.” Scientists are still trying to uncover the physics and chemistry behind its bubble-looking shapes.
- Our giant #babyshark (Carcharocles megalodon) and staff are cheering on the @Nationals in their first game of the #WorldSeries tonight! You can doo-doo, doo, doo, doo doo it! #StayInTheFight 🦈
- Our Curator of Dinosauria, Matthew Carrano, wants in on #UnscienceAnAnimal. Here’s his take on T. rex! #DeepTime
- We’re excited to introduce a new, extinct species: Opisthiamimus gregori. It was a lizard-like rhynchocephalian—part of the same ancient lineage as 🇳🇿's living tuatara. But this species once inhabited Jurassic N. America about 150 MYA and lived alongside dinos. 🎨Julius Csotonyi
- “The most important thing when taking photos of a fossil specimen is always including a scale bar! 1 Rhomaleosaurus = 7 vertebrate paleontologists.” - Laura Soul, #DeepTime Education Specialist in our Paleobiology Department #ThisPaleoLife #FossilFriday
- This fascinating specimen is the skull of a “narluga,” or narwhal-beluga hybrid, found in the waters off Greenland. The skull has a number of erupted teeth that are shaped like tiny narwhal tusks, as opposed to the beluga’s flat, peg-like teeth. #NarwhalWeek #ArcticLegend
- Hi @burkemuseum, we’re sending you this #MuseumBouquet (Tsuga heterophylla) on behalf of the U.S. National Herbarium. From one Washington to the other, we 💙 you and your collections, researchers, educators, and just everything.
- Today, we remember entomologist Edward O. Wilson who passed away yesterday at the age of 92. Wilson spent part of his childhood in Washington, DC where he explored the natural world by dividing his time between @NMNH, @NationalZoo, and @NatlParkService's Rock Creek Park.
- The holidays wouldn't be complete without the Department of Anthropology’s annual archaeology themed cake. Who can name this year's site?
- Replying to @NMNHThis is the second-blackest fish the team found. It has a bioluminescent lure that it uses to attract prey, and if not for its ultra-black skin and transparent, anti-reflective teeth, the light from its lure would light up its face and scare prey away.
- Replying to @NatlParkServiceAnd here's where we invite anyone and everyone to learn about the "bitey ends" of all 278 squirrel species in this book, which was co-authored by Smithsonian zoologist and curator Richard Thorington (1937-2017). press.jhu.edu/books/title/97…
