The Origami Holiday Tree has marked the start of the holiday season at the Museum for over 30 years. The tradition began when late scientist Alice Gray wowed her co-workers by decorating a small tree in her department of entomology office with origami insects.
The 2008 tree, on display from November 24, 2008 to January 1, 2009 in the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Hall, had the theme of Folding the Museum, featuring colorful paper ornaments representing denizens of the habitat dioramas, permanent halls, and special exhibitions. The 13-foot tree was decorated with hundreds of origami creatures, including a paper Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton and—to represent the trailblazing special exhibition The Horse, entering its final weeks before closing on January 4, 2009—horses created by the 1,600 members of OrigamiUSA. Volunteers begin folding in July to complete approximately 500 creations displayed on the tree. During the holiday season, volunteers will be on hand to teach visitors of all ages the art of origami folding.
Tags: museum of natural history amnh american museum of natural history museum new york city nyc manhattan ny theodore roosevelt memorial hall origami holiday tree origami christmas origamiusa New York christmas 2008 tree holiday tree christmas tree
Styracosaurus, a genus of herbivorous ceratopsian dinosaur, lived during Campanian stage of the Cretaceous Period about 75 million years ago. Its name, meaning "spoked lizard", is owed to the long horns—four to six of them, extending from its neck frill, the smaller horn on each of its cheeks, and the single horn protruding from its nose, which may have been up to 60 centimetres long and 15 centimetres wide. Styracosaurus was a relatively large dinosaur, reaching lengths of 5.5 meters long and 1.8 meters tall.
The Hall of Ornithischian Dinosaurs, one of two halls in the David H. Koch Dinosaur Wing, displays fossils from Ornithischians—dinosaurs characterized by a backward-pointing extension of the pubis bone, which is thought to have helped to support the enormous stomachs that these dinosaurs needed to digest the masses of tough vegetation they ate. Exhibits within this hall explore genasaurs, which are defined by the development of inset tooth rows that form cheeks, and the cerapods, identified by an uneven covering of tooth enamel.
The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH), located at Central Park West and 79th Street, comprises of 28 interconnected buildings housing 45 permanent exhibition halls, in addition to a planetarium and a library, across 2-million square feet. The collections contain over 33 million specimens of plants, animals, fossils, minerals, rocks, meteorites, human remains, and human cultural artifacts. Founded in 1869, the museum opened in the original Victorian Gothic building designed by J. Wrey Mould in 1877. A southern expansion, a rusticated Richardsonian Romanesque by J. Cleveland Cady, extends 700 feet along West 77th Street and in 1936, John Russell Pope added the overscaled Beaux Arts entrance on Central Park West.
Tags: American Museum of Natural History AMNH David H. Koch Dinosaur Wing Hall of Ornithischian Dinosaurs Manhattan museum New York New York City NY NYC Styracosaurus Styracosaurus albertensis Upper West Side UWS Koch Dinosaur Wing museum of natural history dinosaur skeleton bones fossil
This 12-foot-tall amethyst geode is one of the largest in the world. The geode, which weighs more than 9,000 pounds was recently collected in the Bolsa Mine in Uruguay. On temporary display in the Grand Gallery, it will eventually be the centerpiece in the new Allison and Roberto Mignone Halls of Gems and Minerals, which are expected to open in 2019 as part of the Museum’s 150th anniversary celebration.
Approximately 135 million years ago, red-hot molten magma poured out of vents in the ground, forming lake-like sheets. As one of these sheets cooled quickly, giant gas bubbles formed within the magma and were frozen into the rock as it solidified. This geode formed from one of those giant bubbles, called amygdules. As the hardened magma cooled, water slowly seeped into the cavity, carrying dissolved chemical components that crystallized as chalcedony and then quartz crystals on the cavity wall. Over millions of years, the quartz turned purple, becoming amethyst. The crystals built up over time, growing toward the center to create a geode.
Tags: American Museum of Natural History Amethyst Quartz AMNH geode Manhattan museum New York New York City NY NYC Upper West Side UWS amethyst amethyst geode
The Origami Holiday Tree has marked the start of the holiday season at the Museum for over 30 years. The tradition began when late scientist Alice Gray wowed her co-workers by decorating a small tree in her department of entomology office with origami insects.
The 2008 tree, on display from November 24, 2008 to January 1, 2009 in the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Hall, had the theme of Folding the Museum, featuring colorful paper ornaments representing denizens of the habitat dioramas, permanent halls, and special exhibitions. The 13-foot tree was decorated with hundreds of origami creatures, including a paper Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton and—to represent the trailblazing special exhibition The Horse, entering its final weeks before closing on January 4, 2009—horses created by the 1,600 members of OrigamiUSA. Volunteers begin folding in July to complete approximately 500 creations displayed on the tree. During the holiday season, volunteers will be on hand to teach visitors of all ages the art of origami folding.
Tags: museum of natural history amnh american museum of natural history museum new york city nyc manhattan ny theodore roosevelt memorial hall origami holiday tree origami christmas origamiusa New York christmas 2008 shell seashell salamander lizard
The reindeer (Rangifer tarandus), also known as the caribou when wild in North America, is an Arctic and Subarctic-dwelling deer, widespread and numerous across the northern Holarctic.
This tundra scene on the Alaska Peninsula features a sand lake, margined by a muskeg swamp, across from a retreating glacier. The Peninsula is home of violent squalls, known locally as williwaws, a name originated for similar storms in Tierra del Fuego.
The American Museum of Natural History's Hall of North American Mammals first opened in 1942 with only ten dioramas and was completed in 1954. Today, it features 43 dioramas with 46 different mammal species in natural habitats, including some which preserve environments which have been exploited and degraded and are no longer hospitable to the animals. The specimens for the displays were produced from more than twenty-five Museum expeditions, ranging from Mexico to Ellesmere Island in the Canadian Arctic and from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans. The dioramas, including background paintings and foreground objects, were decorated by architectural artist James Perry Wilson.
Tags: AMNH museum of natural history american museum of natural history museum new york city nyc manhattan Grant caribou caribou diorama hall of north american mammals hall of mammals ny new york reindeer deer tundra