February 27, 2020 by
Check out the reptiles and amphibians of today while looking out over prehistoric reptiles that existed millions of years ago.
The Daniel G. & Carole L. Kamin T. rex Overlook is home to the museum's main herpetology displays, which feature toads, frogs, salamanders, snakes, lizards, and turtles of Pennsylvania. Learn about what makes these creatures unique, and enjoy a bird's-eye view of an exciting scene in Dinosaurs in Their Time, where two T. rexes are frozen in battle while a giant pterosaur flies above.
Though Pennsylvania has a temperate climate, it is home to representatives of most reptile and amphibian groups. Four dioramas exhibit examples of animals from our state, including an eastern box turtle, a northern leopard frog, and the venomous copperhead snake.
Meet our Herpetologists
Jennifer Sheridan, Ph.D.
Assistant Curator of Amphibians and Reptiles
Stevie Kennedy-Gold, M.S.
Collection Manager of Amphibians and Reptiles
Learn about the Amphibians & Reptiles (Herpetology) Collection at the Museum
The Section of Herpetology maintains a collection of more than 230,000 specimens and ranks at about the ninth largest amphibian and reptile collection in the United States.
Learn about the Section of Amphibians & Reptiles (Herpetology)
Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: dinos, dinosaurs, dinosaurs in their time
Cretaceous Seaway
Step into an underwater world in Cretaceous Seaway, a unique exhibition hall that features gentle giants and fierce predators that lived underwater during the Age of Dinosaurs.
The hall brings to life the Western Interior Seaway, a shallow ocean that existed in the Midwestern United States 80 million years ago. Hanging over the entry, a massive Manitoba pliosaur closes in on its potential prey, a juvenile of the plesiosaur Libonectes morgani. The juvenile plesiosaur Libonectes is the only one of its kind, replica or otherwise, on display anywhere in the world.
Visitors can also examine the fossils of a giant turtle and a newly restored Tylosaurus mosasaur fossil skull. See a dramatic chase scene where a plesiosaur is in pursuit of a prehistoric diving bird. Look up, and see the king of the seaway—a 40-foot mosasaur swimming above. Two replica fossil fishes hang nearby.
Adjacent to Dinosaurs in Their Time, Cretaceous Seaway is an extension of our blockbuster core exhibition that shows the diversity of life during the Cretaceous Period.
Meet our Invertebrate Paleontologist
Albert Kollar, M.S.
Collection Manager of Invertebrate Paleontology
Learn about the Invertebrate Paleontology Collection at the Museum
Invertebrate Paleontology's collection contains several noteworthy phyla, including Paleozoic trilobites, Mesozoic and Cenozoic crustaceans, lower Carboniferous brachiopods, Paleozoic gastropods, Paleozoic cephalopods, Paleozoic ophiuroids, and Pennsylvanian age eurypterids. The section also has more than 12,000 primary types and figured specimens.
Learn about the Section of Invertebrate Paleontology
Art of the Diorama
Discover the craft and artistry behind Carnegie Museum of Natural History's famous nature dioramas. Art of the Diorama is an exhibition designed to look like a turn of the century museum with mahogany furniture, a chandelier, and seven classic dioramas that were created in the 1920s and 1930s.
The dioramas feature wildlife like blue geese and aurora trout in stunning replications of scenes from nature. The dioramas were created at the height of the craft and feature detailed, hand-painted backgrounds, expert taxidermy, and scientifically accurate flora and fauna. The exhibition also features two antique "bubble-glass" commercial taxidermy pieces that were once popular in homes and parlors.
Art of the Diorama gives visitors a deeper appreciation for the museum's dioramas and shows how museum dioramas have changed and grown alongside the conservation movement.
Meet our Conservator
Gretchen Anderson
Collection Care and Conservation
Learn about the Collection Care and Conservation at the Museum
The entirety of our collection–not just the collection we have on display like these very old dioramas–must be cared for and maintained to ensure they aren't damaged by moisture, oils, pests, and other deteriorating agents.
Learn about Collection Care Strategies
Polar World: Wyckoff Hall of Arctic Life
Traversing 4,500 years of Inuit history, learn about the Canadian Inuit and how they've adapted to the environmental challenges of life in the Arctic. View Inuit sculptures and prints, full-sized dioramas, and Arctic wildlife like Polar Bears, Caribou, and Walruses. Realistic dioramas and a replica igloo transport you to the arctic in this immersive hall. The hall includes an exhibit on the impact of the whaling industry in the 1930s and 1940s that includes original artifacts from whaling ships.
This exhibit was created in the early 1980s. Its purpose was to explore 4500 years of First Nations (this is the preferred term for indigenous people in Canada) history in the Arctic. Because of its age, it now contains both scientific and cultural information that is outdated. We are working to improve the language and content to better reflect the current values of the museum and the scientific advancements and knowledge we have today.
This exhibit promotes systems of oppression by focusing on a colonialist point of view. It insinuates that Europeans made things better for the people they encountered in the Arctic. European colonizers displaced Indigenous communities in North America, exploiting people and land. They violently established themselves as the dominant power and voice. Indigenous people continue to thrive in the Arctic and deserve to tell their own stories. Using the phrase, "Yesterday's People" to describe the people of the Arctic does not convey this message. The colonizers should not be referred to as "visitors." This downplays the violent means by which they established and maintained dominance.
Another source of out of date information in the gallery are the maps that refer to the United Soviet Socialist Republic, which had dissolved by 1991. The tables of climate data and the maps that depict the extent of Arctic ice are also out of date. Arctic temperatures have warmed dramatically (almost twice as fast as the global average), and ice has drastically declined in association with ongoing human-caused climate change. These extreme climate changes are putting tremendous stress on the people and wildlife.
We realize that there is also problematic language used to describe the people represented in the exhibit. The term "Eskimo" is used throughout the hall to refer to those First Nations individuals encountered by the colonizers. While this is a term used in Alaska to self-designate by some people, it is most often used as a derogatory term. The preferred term in Canada is Inuit, which refers specifically to those who make their homes in the Arctic and subarctic regions of North America and Siberia.
Meet our Anthropologist and Archaeologist
Deborah Harding, M.A.
Collection Manager of Anthropology
Amy Covell-Murthy, M.A.
Collection Manager of Archaeology
Learn about the Anthropology and Archaeology Collection at the Museum
The anthropology collection, the Section of Anthropology and Archaeology, contains major research collections of over 100,000 ethnological and historical specimens and over 1.5 million archaeological artifacts.
Learn about the Section of Anthropology and Archaeology
Blogs about the Arctic Region
Arctic Message
By Patrick McShea What happens in the Arctic effects all of us. The frozen seas of the northern hemisphere's remotest territory influence …
Are Santa's Reindeer Real Mammals?
by Suzanne B. McLaren Yes! Reindeer are real mammals. In fact, reindeer are the same species as caribou (Rangifer tarandus). The species is …
Face to face with a polar bear
Come face to face with a polar bear in Polar World: Wyckoff Hall of Arctic Life at Carnegie Museum of Natural History.
What's This: a spoon, a tongue depressor or a sled shoe? Sled shoes were made of bone or ivory and pegged to …
February 3, 2020 by
Benedum Hall of Geology
What shaped the Earth's surface? How are fossils formed? What did western Pennsylvania look like millions of years ago when giant lizards roamed through our once-tropical forests? Learn the answers to these questions and more when you explore the ever-changing nature of our planet in Benedum Hall of Geology.
Three Earth-like domes highlight geological time and dating, fossils, shaping the Earth, and Pittsburgh geology. A fourth dome explores the origin, location, and economic development of coal, oil, and gas. A strong emphasis is placed on the geological processes that shaped Pennsylvania and its neighbors, Ohio and West Virginia. The Stratavator offers a simulated-elevator ride deep into the Earth.
The Section of Invertebrate Paleontology has close to three-quarters of a million fossils in its collection. Because of the special interest in the Paleozoic Era fossils by the section's four curators and the central location of Carnegie Museum Natural History within the Appalachian Basin, the Paleozoic Era fossils make up almost half the collection.
Blogs about Benedum Hall of Geology
Carnegie's Cactus: Carnegie gigantea
by Patrick McShea Diplodocus carnegii, a sauropod star of Dinosaurs in Their Time, is not the only large organism exhibited at Carnegie …
Collected on this Day 105 years ago
So long, leaves. Autumn has fallen. This specimen of red maple (Acer rubrum) was collected on November 13, 1915 by Otto Jennings …
Collected on this Day in 1966: Santa Clauses
Christmas in July…"Santa Claus" floating in the air. (Or I guess, technically Boxing Day in July, if that's a thing.) Make a …
Finding Resilience Through Plant Love
Feeling a little extra thankful for spring blooms? Taking extra care of your house plants? Urge to garden a little stronger than usual? …
Hall of Botany
Investigate the incredibly diverse plant life of North America and Western Pennsylvania in Hall of Botany. Get lost in beautiful dioramas that depict wildly different biomes from all four corners of the United States. Learn about how animals and humans depend on plants for foods, shelter, medicine, and clothing. Discover how temperature and water affect plants by comparing a Florida everglade, an Alpine meadow on Mt. Rainier, an Arizona desert, and a wooded Pennsylvania valley. Identify herbs by their smells, and learn about photosynthesis and the food chain.
The hall also has several dioramas to show the plants and diverse habitats present in Western Pennsylvania. Local habitats like Lake Erie's Presque Isle during the summer, a Warren County bog in the fall, and the Allegheny National Forest in the spring are all represented in Hall of Botany.
A video in the entryway showcases scientists collecting specimens in the field, preserving them, and ultimately digitizing them so the data can be used by researchers all over the world.
Labels and graphics were created in the museum's Print Shop using green printing techniques: fiberboard composed of 100% recycled material and a new type of vinyl which contains no Polyvinyl Chlorides (PVCs).
Meet our Botanists
Mason Heberling, Ph.D.
Assistant Curator of Botany
Bonnie Isaac, M.S.
Collection Manager of Botany
Learn about the Botany Collection at the Museum
Carnegie Museum's Herbarium (CM) is the major botanical facility in the Upper Ohio Valley region and ranks among the top 25 herbaria in North America.
Learn about the Section of Plants (Botany)
Blogs about Botany