Mythic Creatures: And the Impossibly Real Animals Who Inspired Them

The American Museum of Natural History is one of the world’s preeminent scientific, educational, and cultural institutions. Since its founding in 1869, the Museum has pursued its mission—to discover, interpret, and share information about human cultures, the natural world, and the universe—through a broad program of scientific research, education, and exhibition. Each year, millions of visitors experience the Museum’s 45 permanent exhibition halls, which include world-famous diorama halls and fossil halls as well as the Rose Center for Earth and Space and the Hayden Planetarium. The Museum’s scientific collections, only a tiny fraction of which are on view, contain more than 33 million specimens and artifacts. These collections are an invaluable resource for the Museum’s 200 scientists, for graduate students in the Museum’s Richard Gilder Graduate School—the only museum-based PhD-granting program in the Western Hemisphere—and for researchers around the world.
 
Dr. Laurel Kendall is the Curator and Chair of the Division of Anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History.
 
Dr. Mark A. Norell is the Macaulay Curator and Chair of the Division of Paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History
 
About the exhibition: Mythic Creatures: Dragons, Unicorns & Mermaids is organized by the American Museum of Natural History, New York (amnh.org), in collaboration with the Australian National Maritime Museum, Sydney; Canadian Museum of History, Gatineau-Quebec; Fernbank Museum of Natural History, Atlanta; and The Field Museum, Chicago.