iNational Museum of Natural HistoryNational Mall
From These Lands: Sharing Our Natural and Cultural Heritage
More than 600 specimens and cultural belongings from all 50 states, DC and five US territories — fossils, minerals and treasures chosen to represent every corner of the country.
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Among the 600-plus objects here is 13,000-year-old dung from a Shasta ground sloth, preserved in the dry caves of the Grand Canyon. Scientists pulled it apart and found more than 70 plant species the sloths ate, and the museum files it under "one of America's oldest cold cases."
The room covers all 50 states, DC and five territories, but co-curator Torben Rick says they deliberately didn't sort it by state: you hunt for your California or your Michigan "like an Easter egg hunt" and run into the connections instead. You walk past a wall of 320 insects laid out as a map of the country, an animated map of rivers and terrain, a Menominee dugout canoe and megalodon teeth from North Carolina. You can touch a real mastodon tooth.
It's free with no ticket, on the second floor, open daily 10am to 5:30pm until 2029. Finding your own state takes some looking, which is the point.
Look for
Martha, the last passenger pigeon
Look for the last bird of an extinct species, shown beside the Guam rail, a bird Smithsonian breeding work pulled back from near-extinction.
The insect map
A wall of 320 beetles, butterflies and cicadas from every state and territory, arranged to form a map of the United States.
The Shasta ground sloth dung
Ice Age droppings from the Grand Canyon, picked apart by scientists who found more than 70 plant species the sloths once ate.
The giant amphibian graveyard
A jumbled slab of 240-million-year-old salamander-like animals from New Mexico, some nine feet long, thought to have been buried together by a flood.
The petrified log from Arizona
A tree trunk turned to quartz in purple, yellow and smoky grey, with tiny marine fossils trapped around its edges.
Good for
- Cheap Culture
- Nerding Out
- Out-Of-Town Guests
- Rainy Days
With kids
Kids can touch a real mastodon tooth and a replica of a carved walrus tusk, and send a virtual postcard of their state's symbols. Entry is free with no ticket.
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Image credits
9
- From These Lands: Sharing Our Natural and Cultural HeritageCourtesy of National Museum of Natural History
- Free and Independent: A Celebration of the DeclarationCourtesy of National Archives Museum
- In Pursuit of Life, Liberty, and HappinessCourtesy of National Museum of American History
- How Can You Forget Me: Filipino American StoriesCourtesy of National Museum of American History
- National Museum of Natural Historyajay_suresh via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0
- National Archives MuseumDavid Samuel (Hellodavey1902) via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
- National Museum of American HistoryCarol M. Highsmith / Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
- National Museum of Asian ArtDifference engine, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture GardenGryffindor, via Wikimedia Commons, Public domain