Last Updated on May 6, 2021
We had previously been to the Natural History Museum in Austria and loved it so much that we knew we had to see what the American Natural History Museum was all about. To our delight, though it felt like we may have been walking through a lot of the ‘same,’ it was great to be able to re-live the moments.
We were a little limited on time as New York is such a huge city and we had to lave the Natural History Museum to the morning we were leaving to go back to Vancouver. We narrowed down what we want to experience most: space ,dinosaurs and some real visual of what we saw in the movie “Night At The Museum.”
Journey To The Stars
It was fabulous they had a show “Journey To The Stars” and we used the “movie” as a starting point to our Natural History journey.
We found it fascinating to learn about how stars work and what the ‘process’ is that stars have to go through now — from being born, ejected from clusters of stars, dying, and shedding matter that has the potential to turn into other stars and planets. Taking a look into space really puts into perspective how small we really are.
Dinosaurs
“The great extinction that wiped out all of the dinosaurs, large and small, in all parts of the world, and at the same time brought to an end various lines of reptilian evolution, was one of the outstanding events in the history of life and in the history of the earth…. It was an event that has defied all attempts at a satisfactory explanation.”
—EDWIN H. COLBERT, The Age of Reptiles
The quote above describes well why we find dinosaurs so fascinating. That, and we like to be put in our place by awesome things. Dinosaurs do that.
Regardless of whether it is Tyrannosaurus Rex with a 4-foot long jaw, 6 inch teeth and massive thigh bones, a “small-brained” Stegosaurus , or a Triceratops the largest ceratopsians and one of the last to become extinct, dinosaurs are fascinating creatures.
Night At The Museum
After seeing Night At The Museum, we thought it would be interesting to see some of the real exhibits behind the characters featured in the movies. Luckily, we had a chance to visit a handful of the exhibits and experience just how different the movie really was than our surroundings.
1st Floor | Exhibit Hall: Bernard Family Hall of North American Mammals – Bison
2nd Floor | Exhibit Hall: Akeley Hall of African Mammals (Which we thorouly enjoyed as we had just been in South Africa!) – African Lions
2nd Floor | Exhibit Hall: Akeley Hall of African Mammals – African Elephants
3rd Floor | Exhibit Hall: Hall of Primates – Capuchin Monkey
4th Floor | Exhibit Hall: Hall of Saurischian Dinosaurs – Tyrannosaurus rex
The American Museum of Natural History was HUGE. We could have easily spent an entire day there exploring the world, both past and present day.
Some of our favorite photos:
Have you ever visited a Museum of Natural History? What was your favorite exhibit?