Major centre of research and education on the natural sciences, established in New York City in 1869.
It pioneered in staging field expeditions and creating dioramas and other lifelike exhibits showing natural habitats and their plant and animal life. Its research collections contain tens of millions of specimens, and its fossil and insect collections are among the largest in the world. It conducts research in anthropology, astronomy, entomology, herpetology, ichthyology, invertebrate biology, mammalogy, mineralogy, ornithology, and vertebrate paleontology, and it maintains permanent research stations in The Bahamas and the U.S. states of New York, Florida, and Arizona. It also contains one of the world's largest planetariums.