We’re the museum looking deeper into the Earth’s past to shape a new future where both people and planet thrive.
Protecting the planet, it’s in our nature. 🌍
We congratulate His Majesty The King Charles III on his
#CoronationDay
👑
We are grateful for the King's long-held commitment to championing the protection of our natural world.
'You are never too small to make a difference.'
A new species of miniature beetle has been named after
@GretaThunberg
, in recognition of her advocacy for climate action and protecting the natural world 🌍🐞
We know birthday boy Jungkook of
@bts_twt
loves Brachiosaurus and Tyrannosaurus! 💜 You can see the T. rex in the Dinosaurs gallery on your visit, and brush up on brachiosaurs with our Dino Directory online:
#HappyBirthdayJungkook
#꾸기생일ㅊㅋ
And our winner is....Yongqing Bao!
Selected by our judges from over 48,000 entries, Yongqing’s powerful winning picture frames nature’s ultimate challenge - its battle for survival - in an unforgettable and unique moment between a Tibetan fox and a marmot.
Happy 98th Birthday to the inspiring Sir David Attenborough! 🌎
In his own words engraved outside our main entrance 👉 "The future of the natural world, on which we all depend, is in our hands" 💚
“No one will protect what they don't care about, and no one will care about what they have never experienced.”
On his birthday we're sending huge thanks to Sir
#DavidAttenborough
for being such an incredible advocate for the natural world 🌿🦋🦍🦎🦈🌍
Fenn, my nearly 4 year old daughter, recorded her first ever solo song today. She came up with all the words herself and I helped her a little bit with the tune. It’s called ‘Dinosaurs in Love’. 🦕❤️🦕
It's your very last chance to vote for your favourite image in the
@LumixUK
#WPYPeoplesChoice
Award.
Voting closes today at 14.00 GMT. It's free and takes seconds. View the stories behind 25 incredible images and pick your favourite:
@NHM_WPY
#WPY54
A massive congratulations to Nima Sarikhani who has won our Wildlife Photographer of the Year People’s Choice Award! 👏
Nima’s dreamy image captures the moment a polar bear drifts off to sleep on a bed made of ice against stunning pink and blue sky. ❄️
🚨 Breaking news: A huge skull found in the Songhua River in China represents a new sister lineage for Homo sapiens. It dates to at least 146,000 years old and has been dubbed 'Dragon Man'.
This is a remarkable piece in the jigsaw of human evolution.
The winner of this year’s
@LumixUK
#WPYPeoplesChoice
Award
@NHM_WPY
is Sam Rowley, with his well-timed portrait of two mice scrapping over food on a London Underground station platform.
Have you met our long-legged duo? 👋
The anatomy of this taxidermy and skeleton duo in
#HintzeHall
teaches how a long neck could help the giraffe survive in the wild...
Many museum collections, including our own, are rooted in colonialism and racism.
Today, we need to be accessible to all, as the hallmarks of this legacy linger on.
It is essential we engage with these issues in order to move forward.
#MuseumsAreNotNeutral
Happy Birthday Mary Anning! 🥳
The palaeontologist was born
#OTD
in 1799, & today her statue has been unveiled in Lyme Regis!
The campaign for the statue,
@MaryAnningRocks
, has worked for 4 years to give Anning recognition for her work collecting fossils on the Jurassic Coast.
From today, we've got a brand new surprise in the Museum. 🥁
In celebration of Jurassic Park's 30th anniversary, we've completely transformed our Cranbourne Boutique.
You'll see lots of Jurassic favourites!
The Siberian unicorn was a true Ice Age giant, weighing up to twice as much as a modern rhino.
Now, the first ever dating of the ancient rhino's fossils show it survived until at least 39,000 years ago.
We'd planned to fly the transgender pride flag over the Museum this
#TransDayOfVisibility
, in a show of support for our trans and non binary colleagues, volunteers and visitors. Unfortunately we can’t fly it today, so we've let some of our collections display the same message.
A shocking new report has revealed just how polluted the areas around oil and gas platforms in the
#NorthSea
are.
How high were levels of pollutants compared to the surrounding area?
Wishing Sir
#DavidAttenborough
a happy 97th birthday today! Thank you for inspiring us with your love for nature and for lending your words to support our Urban Nature Project 💚
The winner of this year’s
@LumixUK
#WPYPeoplesChoice
Award is David Lloyd, with his stunning image of a tender moment between two male lions. Find out more about David's winning
@NHM_WPY
photograph.
Congratulations to legendary broadcaster and naturalist Sir David Attenborough, who has received the
@wef
Crystal Award this evening for his leadership in environmental stewardship.
#wef19
Our animatronic T. rex is getting into the Christmas spirit. It's been kitted out in its very own theropod-size seasonal sweater, made from 100% recycled materials, thanks to
@britishxmas
.
Get your claws on your own version:
#NHMtrexmas
Who wore it best? 🤔
Great to see the King giving a cheeky nod to the king of the dinosaurs in this fantastic T. rex tie while out on duties. Our very own T. rex had chosen his King Charles tie to wear to say hello to visitors this morning! One of them will have to change...
For millions of years, parents across the animal kingdom have cared for their eggs and young, providing both time and resources, sometimes to their own detriment. Dinosaurs were no exception. [🧵1/6]
Calling all witches and wizards! Tickets are now on sale for our major new exhibition Fantastic Beasts: The Wonder of Nature. Get yours here:
#NHMFantasticBeasts
Wishing a Happy Birthday to our Royal Patron HRH The Duchess of Cambridge (
@KensingtonRoyal
).
We are incredibly grateful for her ongoing support and to be working with her, engaging young people in the importance of protecting nature through our upcoming Urban Nature Project.
Whalecome back once again! 🐋
We're thrilled to once again throw open our doors and welcome visitors back to the Museum for the first time this year 🎉
We're now back to normal opening hours, so that's every day except 24-26 December, 10.00 to 17.50, with last entry at 17.00.
Wishing Sir David Attenborough a very happy 95th birthday today! 🎂
Did you know Sir David recorded a very special audio guide to some of our star specimens? Let his unmistakable voice guide you around the
#NHMatHome
:
Happy 92nd birthday Sir David Attenborough 🎉 Thank you for your stunning documentaries, your inspiring words and your work to preserve the beauty our home, planet Earth.
It's National Insect Week and we're celebrating these important critters. From flies to fleas, insects are the most diverse group of organisms on Earth. Join us at
#SensationalButterflies
and see one of nature's most spectacular examples:
#NIW2018
The secret's out! We're thrilled to announce our major new exhibition, Fantastic Beasts: The Wonder of Nature, in partnership with
@wizardingworld
and
@BBCOne
- opening in Spring 2020
#NHMFantasticBeasts
SO WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT IT TECHNICALLY WE ARE ALL FISH BECAUSE YOU'D HAVE TO INCLUDE ALL TETRAPODS, AND ALL BIRDS ARE ACTUALLY REPTILES, BUT FOR EASE WE SEPARATE THEM ALL OUT WHEN TALKING ABOUT THEM EVEN THOUGH THAT'S PHYLOGENETICALLY WRONG
We're facing a
#PlanetaryEmergency
.
The natural world is disappearing faster than ever before. As it starts to vanish, the effects are already being felt.
Humans have caused this crisis, and we must act to solve it.
#ForPeopleAndPlanet
It's getting quieter out there.
Staggering new data from
@_BTO
has found that there are now 73 million fewer birds in Britain's skies than there were 50 years ago.
Find out more with today's
#NatureNews
👇
Happy
#InternationalWomensDay
from female staff at the Museum. They include researchers, educators, curators, writers, visitor assistants, leaders, marketers, developers, designers, conservators and engineers.
#IWD
#WomensDay
#IWD2018
#WHM
We are deeply saddened to hear of the passing of Her Majesty
#TheQueen
.
Her sense of duty and devotion to a life of service was matched by her care for the natural world.
This inspirational legacy lives on in the commitment demonstrated by her family to the health of our planet.
Not all species need two sexes.
All around the world, a number of different species of lizards have evolved to be all-female. In order to reproduce, the reptiles simply clone themselves. 🦎
Find out how in our LGBTQ+ tour 👇
#Pride
There are more male specimens in natural history collections than female.
This might sound inconsequential, but it could be baking in a sex bias for studies looking at everything from biogeography to taxonomy.
Read today's
#NatureNews
to find out how 👇
Today is
#BiodiversityDay
! Or to give it it's full title: International Day for Biological Diversity
#IDB2019
But what is biodiversity? And why do we care about it?
A THREAD >
We’ve teamed up with
@RoyalMintUK
to make a set of coins celebrating dinosaurs discovered in modern-day Britain.
Designed by palaeoartist Robert Nicholls, the
#DinosauriaCollection
features Megalosaurus, Iguanodon and Hylaeosaurus 🦖
Wands at the ready! The first release of tickets for our major new exhibition Fantastic Beasts: The Wonder of Nature go on general sale tomorrow morning at 10:00 GMT.
#NHMFantasticBeasts
Congratulations to this year's
#WildlifePhotographerOfTheYear
, Sergey Gorshkov! 🏆
Sergey mastered the use of camera traps to get his blissfully wild image of a lone Siberian tigress which won the judges over.
#WPY56
#WPYAwards
#SciNews
: Uncover the true face of Britain's oldest complete skeleton in a new
#HumanEvolution
themed
@Channel4
documentary, made with the help of Museum experts. Coming soon:
Want to know how our T. rex was fitted in festive attire? We reveal how the team at
@britishxmas
dressed the almost-life-size dinosaur in a custom-made
#Christmas
jumper.
Visit our Ty-santa-saurus rex in the Dinosaurs gallery until 24 December.
#NHMtrexmas
From now on, there will be no single-use plastic water bottles on sale at the Museum. If you are visiting, you can use water fountains, bring a refillable bottle or purchase water in recycled aluminium cans:
It's hard not to admire this
#MusCute
sky puppy on
#BatAppreciationDay
.
The large flying fox, Pteropus vampyrus, is from southeast Asia and has the largest wingspan of any bat, reaching up to 1.5 metres across! D'awwww 🦇
There are around 1.2 billion cattle in the world today, making them one of the most numerous species of ungulate, or hoofed mammal. That's a lot of cows 🐄🐄🐄
#CowAppreciationDay
Tigers make for a photogenic species, but with under 4,000 left in the wild much needs to be done to protect them.
@NHM_WPY
photographer Steve Winter has spent his career documenting their plight, raising awareness of this iconic big cat.
#Dynasties
It's a magical day at the Museum as Fantastic Beasts: The Wonder of Nature is now open! Share photos from your visit with us using
#NHMFantasticBeasts
. We'd love to see what you get up to!
We're proud to support our Patron, HRH The Princess of Wales
@KensingtonRoyal
, in her new early years campaign
#ShapingUs
.
We know just how important it is to inspire, nurture and share the wonder of nature with little ones 🌱
Meet Layla 👋
@earlychildhood
Our earliest years shape the rest of our lives. From pregnancy to the age of five, the world around us, the people we meet, and the experiences we have are all
#ShapingUs
Happy
#DarwinDay
!
Today we celebrate the anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth. Possibly the world's most famous biologist, his statue now resides in pride of place in Hinzte Hall.
Our thoughts go out to everyone at
@MuseuNacional
, and to all of Brazil - such terrible news and a devastating loss to heritage and science.
#MuseuNacional
Records do not reveal a single point in time where modern humans originated, researchers have found.
Contrary to what many believe, neither the genetic nor fossil records have so far revealed a defined time and place for the origin of our species.
We’re thrilled to announce that Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Cambridge (
@KensingtonRoyal
), Patron of the Museum, will reveal this year's Wildlife Photographer of the Year winner. Join us live tomorrow, 13 October at 20.00 BST.
@NHM_WPY
#WPY56
Just over a week ago, a fireball was seen streaking across the night sky in the UK.
Now, for the first time in 30 years a UK meteorite has been recovered, from a driveway in Gloucestershire.
But this meteorite started its journey long, long ago... 1/
All this week we’re joining in with
@ChrisGPackham
's
#FoxOfTheDay
. Celebrating foxes and sharing our love for them through powerful and sensitive photographs just like this one created by Andy Parkinson.
Do you know someone that loves foxes too?
Hold your breath as you swim alongside a
#Rhomaleosaurus
- an extinct marine predator that lived 180 million years ago - in a water-filled Fossil Marine Reptiles Gallery! 1/6
The Museum first opened its doors to the public
#OTD
in 1881 🎉
Our cathedral to nature is the result of Sir Richard Owen's determination to create a space for the natural history collections of
@britishmuseum
, where incredible displays of life on Earth would be available to all.
Considered to be the least fish-like of fishes, a new species of swamp eel was not found swimming in a stream, but burrowing through the soil in a lush rainforest.
Feral hogs are domestic pigs (Sus scrofa domesticus) that have either escaped or been released into the wild, and animals that have descended from such populations.
Discover the incredible story of John Edmonstone.
An enslaved man who gained his freedom, he tutored a young Charles Darwin in the craft of taxidermy - a skill that proved fundamental to Darwin formulating his theory of evolution.
#BlackHistoryMonth
A very important visitor joined in with staff for
#MuseumSelfieDay
. Sir David Attenborough was in the building to work on Sky VR's Hold the World virtual reality experience. Find out more:
Hyenas don't have a great reputation, but have they just been misrepresented?
Museum scientist Dr Natalie Cooper explains some of the reasons why these amazing animals deserve a little more love.