NATIONAL MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

The Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History is a gem.  We revisited it on our most recent trip.  What is one of its best features in my opinion is its use of space: It does not try to cram too many exhibits into its available space.  Here are some of the photos that I took there on this visit.

The central rotunda features the largest elephant of any museum, one that weighed some 27,000 pounds when living.

This was not a great shot, but I did want to give a sense of the size of the rotunda space, as well as to feature the elephant.

Now for some of the animal exhibits.

Note the male lion's hairy armpits!  Who knew?

I liked, too, the following snake skeleton.

The animal world is prominent in the museum, but so is geology.  And then there was an extensive section that covered the evolutionary development of humans.

And then there was the moving replica of the "hands cave" in Argentina, extending back some 9,000 years.

Finally, below is a selfie of Geri and me watching a brief film on the history of the hominid family.

John