National Museum of Natural History

The NMoNH (see title above) is huge with dozens of different areas, all featuring some aspect of nature. When you first enter, the elephant greets you, actually it doesn't so much greet you as stare you down. Animals of different lands are featured as you enter the different halls that run off this main foyer.

I won't bore you with all the areas there are to see but, I'll highlight a few. The African exhibit had some great dioramas such as this attack on a water buffalo. As you walk around you need to keep looking up to see a leopard about to pounce or a cobra about to strike. Lots of different countries were featured but I found the African pavilion the most visually entertaining.

Another interesting pavilion was the one on the oceans of the world. There were specimens from the greatest depths to flying fish and aquariums full of exotic fish. The crab in the front centre has an arm reach of over 6 feet; now thats a king crab.

This is a life size model of a Right whale, complete with barnacles and scrapes on its side from fights. See the previous picture for a better idea of its size.

They have 2 actual samples of giant Squid preserved in alcohol. Although larger ones have been found, this one's body was as long as I am and had over 45' of tentacle length. Based on sucker marks on whales, they say there are some at least 4 to 6 times larger than this one. I don't think I'll go swimming below about 500' deep in the ocean anymore.

This is a jaw replica of Megalodon, a great white shark that lived millions of years ago. He could have swallowed one the biggest great whites alive now and not had to bite him. Creatures were certainly larger back in prehistoric times.

Speaking of prehistoric times, the dinosaur pavilion was one of the busiest. I don't know why kids are so fascinated by them but this was a popular place. Dozens of dinosaur skeletons of every conceivable kind and size filled the room. The Smithsonian has been the premier museum for acquiring dinosaur finds and it shows. Some of the skeletons were uncovered over 150 years ago and new ones added just recently.

 This is one of the most complete mastodon skeletons ever found. There is a complete area on animals from the La Brea tarpits in California. Thousands of remains have been found with everything from sabretoothed tigers to giant wolves, and their prey.

They even had multiple displays of flying reptiles. To get an idea of the size, the ceiling tiles above the Pterodactyl are 2 feet wide each. Thats a wing span of nearly 16 to 20 feet.

One of their prize displays in the gems and minerals area is the Hope diamond. It is the largest blue diamond in the world and has been owned by kings and queens and has quite an interesting history. They have even larger diamonds on display, but the blue diamond is very rare which makes this one priceless.

Sorry this is out of focus but thought you might still like to see the worlds largest blue star sapphire as well as the worlds largest cats eye sapphire. Their gems collection went on and on with priceless tiaras to brooches and rings. There was a lot of rocks and stuff as well in the mineral areas. They also had over 2000 meteorites from one weighing over a ton to dust sized diamonds which they say was created by a supernova billions of years ago.

We spent the whole day here and skimmed a lot just to get through it all. This security guard from Easter Island was OK with us taking his picture before we left. Now, a days rest so our feet stop hurting and we'll check out something else. See you soon.