natural history
A 200-Million-Year Old Display Fossil Turns Out to Be a Rare Pregnant Specimen
The pregnant ocean predator from the Jurassic is the largest of her kind.
120 Years Later, Harvard's Garden of Glass Flowers Is Still in Bloom
Harvard's famed collection of Glass Flowers counts over 4,000 models—and one conservator is making sure their timeless beauty endures for another century to come.
This Jurassic Predator Had the Body of a Crocodile and the Teeth of a T. Rex
The Mahajanga Basin produces yet another evolutionary weirdo.
Incredible Knitted Moths Could Go in a Natural History Museum
Max Alexander turns Shetland wool into scientifically accurate depictions of various moth species.
New Species of Extinct Damselfly Was Trying to Get Lucky When It Died
The amber mines of northern Myanmar produce yet another amazing time capsule to the past.
3 Fantastical Surprises Concealed Inside Historical Objects | Conservation Lab
As conservators pick an object apart, what lies inside can be another gem all its own.
6 Mesmerizing Videos of Museum Practitioners at Work | Conservation Lab
Watch conservators restore a vandalized Rothko, submerge a Dickens manuscript in water, and preserve Lonesome George—the iconic Galapagos tortoise—for generations to come.
Unicorns Were Real and Ugly as Hell
According to new research, unicorn-like mammals roamed the earth with humans. We got a brony’s reaction to the news.
Dominican Mine Offers Amber-Preserved Fossils of Earliest Known Modern Flowers
Meet Strychnos electri, an ancient relative of most all of the vegetables we know and love. Also: deadly poison.
Jurassic Butterfly Look-Alike Shows How Nature Repeats Its Best Ideas
Lacewings may be dead ringers for modern butterflies, but that doesn’t mean they have strong family ties.
Nature Gets Surreal in Ellen Jewett’s Fantastic Sculptures
Wire octopi, seaweed turtles, and more come alive in the work of the self-taught sculptor.
Humans Were Living in the Arctic 15,000 Years Earlier Than We Thought
Woolly mammoth bones peg our arrival at about 45,000 years ago.